CafeChatNoir

Or something. They’re calling for snow on Tuesday. They have no idea how much but are saying it could be “significant” – which means, “we have no freakin’ idea.”

What this means is get everything you need to hold you through Wednesday at the market tomorrow, cause on Monday, the locusts will be swarming in and the aisles will be cleared of milk, toilet paper, bread and boneless chicken breasts. I on the other hand, will be purchasing beef, tortillas, and porkchops if they have ones that look good.

Oh, , I found the plug-in that lets you subscribe to comments over on the WP side so you can get replies! And it seems to actually work! (I may eventually just turn off the LJ comment side so I can have everything in one place.) Unfortunately, I still don’t seem to be able to get the comment count thing working – it works in the RSS feed, but not in the crossposted stuff, which is frustrating, because it seems to be working for . It’s not the end of the world by any means, but annoying nonetheless.

Though I didn’t spend quite as much time as not knowing what day it was this morning, I did wake in a panic thinking, “Contractors! 8AM! It’s 8:30!! Crap, crap, crap!” and then realized it was only Saturday and that I had not in fact slept through the entire weekend. I can think of much more pleasant ways to wake up.

In making dinner last night, I’ve finally convinced myself that I really DO need some new knives, and it really wouldn’t be a frivolous purchase. (I’ve wanted them for a while, wasn’t sure I could say I needed them.) At a minimum, a new chef’s knife & a santoku knife. I’ve got a couple good paring knives and a good bread knife, but my current chef’s knife just isn’t doing it anymore. There is supposedly a great culinary shop in Old Town but I don’t know the name, nor can I find any kind of directory listing for it… So, I may end up back over at Sur La Table for them, but I’d rather support a non-big-chain business if I can. Guess I’ll find out whenever I can get myself up to Old Town and take a look around.

I’ve had folks ask if all the days tend to run together with the whole unemployed student thing going on. Actually, they don’t and I actually make a point of not letting the week/weekend blindly run together, and I have an amount of structure & routine in my weekdays that surprises even me. Weekdays are for getting stuff done and weekends are for sleeping in and not getting stuff done. (Well, other than laundry & dishes.) Granted, I can get more done during the week now than I did before, which helps the weekends stay “weekends”, but Friday night still has meaning to it in my little world.

Success! I wrote everything down as I went along and I’m glad I did, cause I definitely will use this again someday and I’m sure I won’t remember what I did. However, I think less corn next time or skip it altogether. Still quite good!

Beef Stew

1.5# stew meat, if yours comes like it does here, you’ll need to cut it down into smaller pieces
1 c carrots, chopped
4 white potatoes, chopped into chunks
1/4 lg onion (softball sized), cut into large chunks
1 sm can (11 oz) sweet corn, drained
1 t thyme
1 t pepper
1/2 t salt
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
bay leaf
2T worchestershire sauce
1.5 c Guinness
1.5 c beef stock
3T AP flour
3T butter

Brown beef, and drain.
Melt butter over medium low heat, add flour and get your roux on.
Whisk in stock and beer
Add everything else.
Bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes.
Reduce heat to low, let simmer for 1 hour
Play the “where the hell did the bay leaf go” game and remove

Dumplings – straight from Bisquick

2 cups Original Bisquick mix
2/3 cup milk

Stir ingredients until soft dough forms.
Drop by spoonfuls onto boiling stew; reduce heat.
Cook uncovered 10 minutes. Cover and cook 10 minutes. (Note: This is a good time to clean the bowl you used to mix this up, I know from experience that it can and will turn to cement if not cleaned fast enough.)

The dumplings were a tiny bit on the gooey side – I forgot how much those suckers expand and the initial spoonfuls were a little too big.

Testing comment count plugin, and Open ID plugin.

(Neither of which seems to want to work…)

I have promised my brother that there will be beef stew & dumplings in the house in the next 72 hours. The dumplings are easy enough – that’s why we have this magic stuff called Bisquick. The stew? Well, it occurred to me that I have never actually made beef stew. How does one spend near 35 years on this planet and not make beef stew? I don’t know, but somehow I managed it. I don’t have a recipe and I’d just as soon wing it, cause that’s more fun anyway.

The basics of it are easy enough – beef, carrots, onions, corn, potatoes. Lots of potatoes. Salt, pepper, worchestershire, garlic, thyme, bay leaves. Where it is going to get interesting is the liquid. How much and what? Water, stock, beer, wine? I’ve looked over lots of different recipes and the proportions of beef/vegetables to liquid are all over the place. Figure start with less and add until it it’s right. (Not quite sure how I will be gauging “right” but I figure I’ll know it when I see it.)

I’ll take notes so if it comes out well, I’ll remember what I did next time. Or if it’s awful, what NOT to do next time.

As a child, I had the expected horrified reaction when I heard about “Welsh Rabbit” – you can’t eat bunnies! I was quite relieved when I found out that no cute bunnies come to a dastardly end in making this dish.

Decided I wanted something appetizer-y to go with the leftovers from last night and frankly was just looking for an excuse to make this. Now, this recipe definitely goes farther than just 4 pieces of toast – probably more like 8.

It’s goooooood. And the dog enjoyed it too, when he swiped one of the pieces of toast OFF MY PLATE. He loves cheese. He figured out the cheese that got flipped on the floor during the shredding also went into the pot on the stove and then over the toast. Points for being smart enough to figure it out. Bad dog for taking it off the plate. (He never does that.)

Recipe from Alton Brown

2 T butter
2 T AP flour
1 t dijon mustard
1 t worchestershire sauce
1/2 t kosher salt
1/2 t fresh ground black pepper
1/2 c porter beer (I used Guinness, though it’s not technically a porter, it seemed to work just fine.)
3/4 c heavy cream
6 oz (~1.5 c) shredded cheddar cheese
2 drops hot sauce (I used a garlic-chipotle hot sauce, and kinda went beyond 2 drops/shakes/shots, didn’t seem to be any adverse effects.)

Melt butter over medium-low heat, whisk in flour and cook/whisk for 2-3 minutes.

Whisk in mustard, worcestershire, salt & pepper until smooth.

Add beer, whisk to combine. (Let sit a couple minutes so it can heat back up.) Enjoy the rest of the beer while whisking and whisking some more.

Add cream, whisk to combine. (Let sit again.)

Gradually add cheese (small handfuls at a time) and stir/whisk constantly until melty/smooth.

Add hot sauce, one last whisk-in. Quick, start the toast!

Pour over toast and serve immediately.

And no, I don’t mean that nifty concoction that comes in a can and if sliced thinly and fried up, is actually pretty good in it’s own weird way.

Nah, just talking about the seemingly unending crap that keeps ending up in my inbox. Now, the obvious solution is to just cancel all my email accounts and get a new one. But, it’s not the most practical way to handle it.

The worst offender is my Speakeasy email account, which I’ve had for at least 6 years. There is a server side filter, don’t know who they specifically use, but it at least tags emails and they get dumped to the “Who the fuck are you?” folder in Outlook. My domain emails aren’t quite as bad, but there is still enough to be annoying. LaughingSquid uses SpamAssassin, and again, it’s a server side app.

Now, the Speakeasy account will be going away as we’ll be switching ISP’s in the near future, and I’m thinking I’m just going to stick with my domain email and not use whatever the new ISP email has.

Now, what I’d really like (and the problem is I am not sure it exists) is an email app that can “talk” to SpamAssassin and I can blacklist items from within the app. I can do this in the webmail program LaughingSquid provides, but as a general rule, I don’t much like webmail and much prefer POP3 access.

At the moment, it seems the only thing I can do is blacklist/delete via webmail and then download the rest of the mail into Outlook. I’d really love a somewhat more automated/coordinated solution. If anyone knows of one, I’d love to hear about it.

Got my laptop back this afternoon, in almost working order. They neglected to actually activate the new drive, so 30 seconds of cussing and clicking and now I have a fully functioning system. It’s funny how you get completely used to a particular computer and then when you get stuck with another one, you’re just stumbling around in the dark for a while.

And I’m celebrating having a working CD/DVD drive again by ripping mp3’s off a bunch of CD’s. :)

Steve – I’m totally with you on this one. Trash DRM. Consumers want true portability, and DRM doesn’t help that. And shouldn’t it be about who is listening to the music?

It’s actually more the consistency of a chunky soup IMO, but it’s got a nice kick to it, and good on a freakin’ cold day like today. The original is over at Allrecipes.com, and below is my version.

1.5-2 T butter (for browning chicken, use oil if you prefer)
1.5# chicken breasts, cubed
1/2 c. chopped onion
1-1.5 c. chicken broth (divided, need 1 c. minimum)
1 4oz can chopped green chiles
2-3 15oz cans Great Northern Beans
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 t ground cumin
1.5 t dried oregano
1 t cilantro
1/2 t crushed red pepper

Brown chicken in melted butter over medium heat. Add onions and garlic, cook over medium low heat until onions are translucent/tender. Transfer to colander and let drain.

Add 1 c. of the chicken broth & the chiles to the pot, bring to a boil.

Stir in the spices, 2 of the cans of beans, and the chicken/onion/garlic. Bring to a boil again and let boil for 3-5 minutes. Reduce heat to low and let simmer 30 minutes.

Check it at about the 15 minute point, if too thick, add some of the remaining chicken stock, if too thin, add some of the remaining beans. If after 30 minutes it’s too thick/thin, you can still add the beans or broth then and just let it go another 15 minutes or so. Thick/thin is totally your call – just get to the consistency you like. If you think it’s too spicy, add more of the beans.

Any leftover chicken broth can be frozen and used later.

Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my sense in forgetfulness?
~William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

It’s quite late and sleep is eluding me. Given my confirmed night owl status, this should not be a surprise as this is when my mind is usually racing with thoughts and ideas, but it is also frustrating given that I would like to get up a bit on the early side tomorrow. But I’m not particularly good at shutting off my brain, as evidenced by the ever flipping rolodex of thoughts whipping through it tonight.

Should the character in the piece I’m working on be married or just engaged when she finds out she’s being cheated on?  (Don’t feel sorry for her, karma comes back and bites him in the ass and it’s all good.)

How long do you really have to stay in the Army when you enlist? Especially if there wasn’t this Iraq thing going on? (Yeah, I’ve checked military.com and stuff and can’t find a very clear answer. No, I’m not enlisting.)

What will be on the dinner table tomorrow night?

Would Welsh Rabbit be too much to go along with soup?

How much snow will we get?

Will Target have a decent enough selection of toaster ovens when I go over there to replace the one we have? If not, that’s going to suck, because I really don’t feel like hauling all over town to find one I like.

Why didn’t I notice that the window people hadn’t gotten back to me before they closed for the evening?

I wish the dog believed me when I tell him “Nope, sorry, can’t go out – it’s dark. If it’s dark it means the outside has gone away for the night.” Though if I ever have children, I may try it on them and see if they believe it.

Exactly what kind of drugs leads you to have a site dedicated to watching cheddar cheese age? Because frankly, I can’t see a sober mind coming up with that one. But, they’re probably sleeping well.

985,000 Easy Bake Ovens Recalled

When I was a little one, I oh so wanted an Easy Bake oven. Never did get one – my mother kept saying something about having access to a perfectly good full sized kitchen whenever I wanted.

But I was just entranced – tiny exquisite cakes! Perfectly decorated little sugar cookies! Sprinkles! Frostings! For whatever reason, I felt the Easy Bake would turn me into the next Julia Child.  (As any well marketed kitchen gadget should do.)

It wasn’t just that I coveted the Easy Bake due to it’s well cemented place in pop culture. In one of Louisa May Alcott’s books (either Good Wives or Little Men, I can’t remember now) there is a whole scene in which a little girl has a real miniature stove/oven setup. As in little cast-iron, coal fired, the real deal and she then goes about setting up a dinner party. I thought that was just the absolute coolest thing and thought it was a definite shame that I couldn’t get hold of that.

Overall, I think the biggest draw was the fact that the Easy Bake oven was MY size. Sure, I had a whole kitchen I could use just for the asking, but it was sized for a bunch of grownups and I definitely was not. I couldn’t reach a damn thing, I managed to whack my head on the oven door handle more times than I could count and generally, when your tools just don’t fit you, it’s not quite as much fun.

Should I ever find myself with little ones that have an interest in mucking around in the kitchen, I need to remember this and figure out some ways to make it work without having to resort to a crappy Easy Bake oven…

So, trying to find that perfect gift for the love of your life? Well, if this isn’t it, I don’t know what is.

The Bacon of the Month Club

Link via Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen

Well, I guess it goes to show that even if you work for NASA, you can still be a little bit of a nutjob when it comes to love & romance.

Astronaut charged with kidnap attempt

When it comes to stupid relationship stuff, at least I can say I’ve never done anything that stupid. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think this would have made anything but the local news in Orlando if she hadn’t been an astronaut.  People go a bit around the bend when it comes to love and such every day of the week.

Totally unrelated, the Puppy Bowl that Animal Planet did is the absolute cutest thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

Via the feed – tons and tons of kitties on the internet!

My del.icio.us account has been very, very handy this week with the laptop being in the shop. Just realized I’ve got over 300 links over there… Kinda crazy, but it’s nice to have it all in one place and accessible from anywhere.

Talked w/the service manager over at the shop, the DVD drive is on order and should be here in a day or so and he apologized for no one getting back to me, so here’s hoping it’s not much longer until I have my laptop again.

Virginia is on the Texas bandwagon now, but there will be opt-out options.

Link via DCist.

I’m getting a touch annoyed with the computer situation at the moment. I called again this afternoon to get a status and the tech working on my system was supposed to call me back. No call. If I don’t hear something in the next 30 minutes I’ll be shooting off an email to the service manager to find out WTF is going on with my machine.

I was OK with the initial delays in getting started on it, as I could see they were quite busy when I dropped it off, but not being able to get a status on it is ridiculous.

They have an online status, which in theory is great, but it requires the claim # (which I have) and the unit serial number… Which, no, I don’t have on hand.

I want MY laptop back with all of MY apps on it – I’m sick of webmail.

Super Bowl Ads

Personally, I think Coke had the best ones, especially the takeoff on GTA. The rest were kinda mundane considering how much money & time they put into these.

I have come to the conclusion that the way to watch the Super Bowl is to have a team you like enough to cheer for but you’re not so emotionally invested in that you’re beating your head into the bar everytime there is a stupid turnover.

Still very annoyed about the car, to the point where I’ve been on USAA.com this morning playing with the ‘build your car’ feature, and thinking at some point I need to go really look closely at the GC Laredos & Limiteds to get a better idea of how they’re “different” other than the V6 vs V8 engines. As much as I’d love one, it’s very unlikely that I’ll have a new car by the end of the week, but I just have so little tolerance for broken cars, and at least pricing out new ones makes me feel a little better for whatever strange reason.

What I do like about USAA is that they’ll save the buildup for 90 days and then if you decide you want what you’ve built, just click a button and they’ll go find it and do all the negotiations for you. That is the part of buying a car I totally despise – just tell me when I can pickup the car and I’ll bring you a check. But for the moment, that button remains unclicked.

Apparently the Verizon Center is falling apart, as they’ve gone through 4 glass repairs in todays Caps game. It’s 1-1 at the beginning of the 3rd period, and I’m really hoping they can pull out a win today – they’ve just come off a horrid road trip and could really use a good day.

ETA: And they win it in the shootout!!!!

I always forget that the Super Bowl pre-game coverage starts at o’dark-thirty, and I’m always surprised when I sit down with my coffee and click on the TV and it’s already all about the game.

Did you know that 30 million pounds of snacks will be consumed today? It’s approximately twice the normal daily average, and I’ll be doing my part, as I see some cheese fries or crab dip in my future.

The amount of specualtion that goes on really amuses me, but when you have to fill lots and lots of hours with commentary, I guess you have to come up with something to talk about. Honestly, I’m not sure how many people are sitting around contemplating which quarterback is under more pressure to win the game today, but if they are, they’ll have tons of information with which to make an informed decision on the subject.

Sadly, in the shadow of the Super Bowl, is the Denny’s PBA Tour. That would be bowling. Honestly, I didn’t even think professional bowling even existed anymore, much less was televised.

Apparently I have the death touch for all things mechanical lately.

Tonight I discovered that the window would no longer function on the drivers side of my vehicle. This after dealing with the ignition cylinder falling apart, and then it deciding not to stay running while in idle.

And people wonder why I am suddenly considering trading my current vehicle in for either of the vehicles pictured below.

The thing is, I have a few OCD tendencies, but I can also deal with a lot of less-than-perfect things in my life, especially when it comes to less than perfect automobiles. One of those things has been the craptastic interface between my car stereo and my iPod. I have a “generic” iTrip, and frankly, it’s sub-standard in my eyes. I was actually ready to go out this weekend and replace the stock radio with something that either had a) a cassette on it that I could easily plug a converter into with no worries of radio frequency, or better yet, b) something I could just plug the iPod right into… This may not be an issue anymore, as to the best of my knowledge, both of these vehicles are iPod ready or can be with a few swap-outs of equipment at the point of purchase.

or

So, the REAL question remains…which would I look hotter with, driving down Beach Road with a kayak strapped on top of the vehicle and me driving with with a bikini top…

Regardless, there is a good chance I’ll be at the dealership in the next 7 days discussing my options with them.

Fixed verbage on comment page.

Moved all RSS feeds & comms off LJ and over to Google Reader. LJ is now people only, and the reading format on the Google side works better for me for the comms & feeds.

Beading pages now in WP.

Culinary Note to Self page added

General Note to Self page added

And I do believe that should be the last of the things to be done.

My brother has headed out of town for a couple of days, and the dog is not happy.

At the moment, the sweet hound is curled up and sulking in the back of his crate.

As soon as my brother moved in, Moxley became his dog. Sure, I’m good for dinner, biscuits, & dropping food on the kitchen floor, but I am definitely not the boy. I think it has something to do with the fact that I (try to) make him behave, I’m the one that is always dragging him to the vet or the groomers, and in short, I’m not nearly as much fun. :)

Surprisingly, last night he slept upstairs with me, which is very unusual for him anymore – he’s either on the couch or down with my brother – I wonder if his little doggy brain is somehow thinking that he chased off the boy cause he slept upstairs.

And being a dog, he’s got that guilt trip thing completely mastered. For the next 3 days I’ll feel bad every time I leave the house.

He’s such a good dog, I always feel bad when he’s not his super-happy self.

Just got a call from the HOA and the replacement windows have been approved! Just a matter of calling the window place on Monday and confirming the date I’ve got, and maybe getting it moved up if they’ve got any open days. Woohoo!!!!

Called the shop to get a status on my laptop – they’d called earlier in the week letting me know how long the data backup would take (because it’s charged by the hour) and then said they’d call again once they had the estimate for the actual repair. And then I heard nothing.

So, I call in, give them the ticket number and the guy on the phone says, “I think that is the one they’re fighting with, let me check something.” Ummm, OK. Comes back, “Yeah, they’re definitely fighting with it, I can have one of the techs call you Monday and give you the full details.” OK. Sure. Crap.

Honestly, I didn’t see this as a particularly complicated situation. The CD/DVD drive is deasd and needs to be replaced. The laptop overheats, which to me says, take the back off, get out all the damn dust that I am sure is in there and double check the fans, heatsinks and thermal paste. Fighting with it should not be part of the equation.

And they wondered why I insisted on the data backup before they got started on things.

I’ve never been big on ‘reality TV’, but I do really enjoy watching Gordon Ramsay’s F Word – not because of the carnage and spectacular amounts of swearing, (though it’s entertaining) but because it doesn’t seem to be terribly often in life that you see someone with that much passion for what they do. It’s not just a work ethic type thing – it is a pure love of what they are doing that drives them.

Frankly, I’m a little jealous because I still haven’t quite stumbled on my passion yet. I know it’s out there, and maybe I’ve found it and just haven’t quite realized it yet. The estate & townhouse are a bit distracting to say the least. Maybe when I’m not constantly thinking about phone calls and contractors and such I’ll have a different outlook.

Cooking, writing, photography, helping people, mucking about with technology. They’re all things I really enjoy and bring me happiness and satisfaction. (Who in their right mind stays up until 3AM deconstructing a WordPress theme for fun?) But if someone were to say to me, “I’ll pay you to do this”, I don’t know if I would be jumping at the chance. The site migration is a good example – I’ve had a ton of fun mucking around with it, but it’s MY project, MY deadlines, and I have no one to answer to but myself. (OK, and the tens of people that read the site.) But, when it becomes your livelihood, those nice control aspects disappear and then it’s not as much fun anymore… Best example would be my last job – mucking about with technology – loved it – but the less control we had over the situation, the worse it got.

I have a few people in my life who have that passion for what they do, the lucky bastards. Here’s to them keeping it and to my finding it eventually.

About page updated.

Additional recipes added, check 1/1/07

Photo Gallery now embedded in WP Photography page

Races page now in WP

Compact Archives plug-in installed & working.

Digital Fingerprint plug-in installed, everything looks OK, except for the fact that it’s not actually functioning… Waiting to either hear back from the developer or another user who seems to have run into the same issue and has it working now. And has apparently decided to start working now…

Feed Control installed and operational.

This just came across the wires: Texas Governor Rick Perry Issues Order Requiring HPV Vaccine

However, parents can opt-out for “reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs”, which in my eyes takes it from an “order” to a “suggestion”. Even with that, I am sure there will folks on both sides of the debate completely up in arms over it.

Some interesting info from CNBC on this – apparently the Texas governor has close ties with Merck, who makes the vaccine, and their Texas lobbyist used to be on the governor’s staff. Talk about things that make you go Hmmmm. He’s also considered to be fairly right-wing/conservative, so that makes the order a little more surprising, at least to me. It will be interesting to see what political fallout (if any) there is over this with his constituency.

As far as the vaccine itself goes, if I had daughters, I’d most likely get them vaccinated for it, school requirements or not. (I say “most likely” because at the moment, I don’t have all the information needed to make a final decision. Or a daughter.) I’m just not big on government mandating what I see as a decision to be made by parents & health care providers.

I still don’t understand the argument that this will somehow encourage girls to be sexually active. It just really doesn’t make sense to me. If you genuinely think this is going to make your daughter turn into a trollop, then I’d say it’s time to sit down and have a very long talk with them.

I also don’t like hearing the words “cancer vaccine” get thrown around as it is NOT – it’s a vaccine against a virus, and you could get the vaccine and still get cervical cancer.

It’s $360 for the full series of doses, which not everyone has just sitting around. It will be included in the federal Vaccines for Children program, but there is still going to be a gap of families that don’t qualify for VfC or state programs and don’t have it covered by their insurance plans. The Texas order doesn’t go into effect until September of next year, so in theory most insurance plans that are going to cover it will have picked it up by then. Personally, I imagine it will be covered like other childhood vaccines are, given that $360 is cheap compared to cancer treatments.

Several other states are considering similar measures at this time. Maryland has already dropped a proposal to mandate the vaccine for school admission stating that there are “too many vaccine requirements” for schoolchildren already. Which I suppose sounds better than, “We really don’t want to get into this entire mess, thanks.”

I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over… – Groundhog Day

Well, seems the groundhog didn’t see his shadow this morning, which is fine by my, cause I’m not much of a winter gal anyway. If we’re not getting snow, I’d rather it be over 75 degrees.

Honestly, I somehow thought I’d shed the “hey, if you’re not from around here, please talk to me!” vibe I had going on. Granted, tonight’s misanthrope was already sitting in the jackass seat* when I got there, but damn…if you’ve not been in the area for even 5 years, don’t start arguing with a gal over the museum offerings when she has been here 20+ years and you’re a Eastern European import via 17 years in Boston, and she is currently a HISTORY major… Trust me, when I tell you something about the museums, I do know of which I speak, and NO they are not all free here in DC, you fuckwit. Secondly, if you hear me utter the words, “You arrogant prick”, you can rest assured I will not be accepting any drink offers from you, and most surely will not be heading out for another after hours watering hole with you… But if you’re too busy spouting off how much you “know” about the DC area, I suppose you won’t get it. And for the record, only going into DC to visit “gentleman’s clubs”, does NOT count as going into the city on a regular basis, nor does it grant you any privilege to speak of the various and sundry museums the city has to offer.

In less contentious, yet equally serious news, I discovered this evening that I was the only Duke fan in the pub as I was the ONLY one quite literally standing on my seat as Duke attempted a Hail Mary Three Pointer with no time left on the overtime clock, and dammit, missed it and lost to UVA.

But in the “all crap has it’s silver lining” category, because of my freak friend, I discovered that GD’s is “selling” bar side seats for the Super Bowl. You buy a $25 gift card and you get a guaranteed bar seat for the game. Little bro will be inebriated w/his friends down in Blacksburg this weekend, and well hells bells, why not? I actually like the Colts enough to cheer for them, why not do it with a barside seat? (I even got to pick my spot.) Quite literally, I need to remember that I have to be there by 6PM Sunday… Little bro has offered to text and remind me, just in case. Hell, why not?

And apparently SkySports will be showing the Super Bowl this weekend, for folks that are into “American Football” – and they’re asking who will be doing halftime… Hell, I don’t even know that.

*The jackass seat: It’s an odd phenomenon, but it would seem that whomever sits at the far leftmost bar seat (as you walk in the bar) is a jackass. I’ve seen it happen too many times to write it off to coincidence, it is truly the jackass seat. There have been evenings where I have taken it solely for the purpose of defeating it’s karma and just been pleasant and very quiet all evening, but it has not erased the predestination of that particular barstool.

The site migration is now complete – 2800+ posts brought over, set for security and tagged. I’m sure I’ll find some little things to fix in the near future, but I am quite pleased with the way things are at the moment. I know there’s a plugin that I can use to bring comments over, but

Now, if I could just fix everything else in the world as easily, we’d all be set.