Veni Vidi Vici

As a part of Buckhead Life Group's summer time promotions, I received a free thirty dollar gift card. The rules said that it must be used at the restaurant printed on the card during the month of July, Fridays and Saturdays are blacked out, and of course, doesn't include alcohol. The restaurant of the month for July was one of my favorites, Veni Vidi Vici.

I sat at the bar for company's sake and started with, still the best Caesar salad this side of homo-erotic wrestling. The whole leaves of romaine lettuce are lightly brushed with their delicious homemade dressing. I don't know how they apply the dressing so perfectly, but it's enough to be noticed and never overbearing. Instead of typical chunks of toasted bread for croutons, they used crumbles of parmigiano cheese rolled in bread crumbs.

For the main course, I attempted to order the Risotto Frutti Di Mare which was shrimp, mussels, clams, calamari, fennel and saffron slowly cooked and served with risotto. This sounded good but my bartender/food guide suggested the Zuppa Di Mare instead. This dish consisted of mussels, clams, prawns, scallops, and the fish of the day in a slightly spicy tomato saffron broth.

I'm glad I listened. The mussel and clam meat almost fell out of their shells. They both tasted fantastic and had a wonderful non-chewy texture. Being how well the shellfish were cooked, I expected the fish to be overcooked and mushy. Wrong. Delicious and flaky. The prawns were standard, cooked properly, but didn't jump out as special.

But the scallop. Oh the scallop. Oh the giant scallop on the bottom of the pile of seafood goodness. Oh how you perfectly cooked and flaky. Oh how you were uber delicious. Oh how you melted on my tongue. Oh how you used just up to the first knuckle of your pinky.

Knowing very little about wine, I asked for a mid-priced glass of dry red wine to accompany the meal. The bartender thought for a minute and poured a glass of Santi Ripasso. Awesome. Fruity but not sweet, dry but not so you pucker. As he put it, "a totally approachable wine". This is the wine I would stock at the house, if I stocked wine at the house.

After paying the highly reduced check, they handed me another thirty dollar gift card. This one has to be used in August at Blue Pointe. I've never been so that will be my new dining adventure for next month. And if that card is used, I'll receive a final gift card for $30 to be used at any BLG restaurant.

I told you it was never a good idea

The War on Beer Pong.

HT: Rusty Tanton

Colbert Apologizes to Canton, Ga

Embedded Video (SFW)

Open says me checking account

One-hundred and thirty American dollars later, my garage door is much quieter and no longer a death trap in waiting.

American Overhead Garage Door came out this morning to reattach the spring anchor bracket to the wall. This is an important joint in the operating of any garage door only if you want it to open and/or close.

The technician was supposed to arrive between 7 and 9 AM. I called at 8:45 to make sure I was still on the list. The receptionist said everything looked good, so I waited until 9:45 to call back. The manager hopped on the phone and apologized for the delay. Keith arrived at the house 30 minutes later, delayed by the previous garage door job. I understand that "things sometimes happen" but a phone call would've been nice.

Keith was very nice and very knowledgeable. He had the anchor reattached to the wall, the rotors re-greased and ready to take my money in a little under an hour. The garage door has never sounded better.

Test post

Test post from my iPhone using the cellspin app.

I played bass in my high school rock band (like a million other teenage boys). One day our guitarist, who was slightly older and looked like Eric Clapton, passed out while in the middle of the solo on “Mississippi Queen" (he said later that he was “tired"). Immediately, ten girls jumped up onto the stage, stroking, consoling, and otherwise “reviving him". At that precise moment I decided to switch to guitar.

-Hiram Bullock; September 11th, 1955 - July 25th, 2008

Awesome!

WSB radio is going to re-air 4 UGA football games from last season starting August 3rd. The schedule is as follows:

Sat. August 2: UGA at Alabama 1:00 PM
Sat. August 9: UGA at Georgia Tech 1:00 PM
Sat. August 16: UGA vs Florida from Jacksonville 1:00 PM
Sat. August 23: : Auburn at UGA 2:00 PM


HT: UGA Sports Blog

Lucy in disguise

I have an acquaintance that thought the The Vapours' hit song was "Dirty Japanese" and not the actual song title of "Turning Japanese". Bless her heart.

Note to self; must go to Karaoke to see if she sings the Elton John tune as, "Hold me closer Tony Danza".

Still pushing

Day three of the 100 Push Up plan is in the books and it's getting easier and harder at the same time. I can already tell a positive difference in that it's easier to do the first few reps, but adding quantity each subsequent day keeps it tough. Don't tell anyone, but I'm liking exercise.

ESPN started airing their coverage of the '08 WSOP last night and so far, it receives a solid; "eh?". They started with 2 hours of coverage from the final table of the 10k Pot Limit Hold 'Em and showed all the big hands interspersed with interviews of the players. The interviews are rarely interesting and showing just the hands that play themselves is quite boring. Also, if there is a hell, I'm certain Norman Chad is going to be there calling the action. His use of puns pushes me over the edge. It would be a great move to bring in the two guys from Wipeout...

...which might be the funniest television program I've seen in a while. People falling to the ground and bouncing off big red balls will get me every time.

Poker

Last night I attended a live cash game for the first time in a few months. I played badly for the first hour and burned through my initial buy-in. After rebuying and hunkering down, I made my money back in about an hour and went on to double the total investment.

While I can't remember specific hands that took down pots, I can vividly remember the two really really good folds that I'm proud of. I lost the minimum both times and loved making the right move. I was far happier to make those two folds than I was making money. It was a night that I felt an improvement in my game and reading ability.

Which leads me to this. I'm starting a local game once a month game. Let me know if you're interested.

It's a still a small world.

While working a show, I don't look in the orchestra pit very often. 1) It's normally the same musicians. 2) I shouldn't know any of them personally 3) I'm normally busy doing my job.

But due to work related details that I'm not willing to go into on the web, I happened to look in the pit on Saturday and was pleased to see an old cohort.

Back in the summer of '97 I got a gig playing in a dixieland quintet at Six Flags. We performed five - twenty-five minute sets a day under a large outdoor gazebo. This would be outside, during the summer in the Atlanta heat and humidity under 16 stage lights.

I still scratch my head wondering why the stage lights were needed. And scratch my head wondering why I remember the number of lights. We hated those lights. HATED. THOSE. LIGHTS. You could feel them turn on and it felt like they added 12 degrees to our environment. Needless to say, we sweated a lot that summer. But it was an extremely fun and well paying gig that had some great perks to go with it.

Perks included...

• Access to a golf cart and the behind the scenes paths to get around the park.
• Dressing rooms in the Crystal Pistol with the Crystal Pistol performers. That season, all of the male CP performers were gay and all of the female CP women were hot and friendly. No, not friendly in that way, just really nice.
• During the slow days (read thunderstorm warning days) we could ride Batman back to back to back to back in between sets.
• Wardrobe people that cleaned our outifts between sets.
• The ridiculously cheap staff cafeteria. Wait. No. The food sucked.
  

Back to the guy in the pit. Lester was the other trumpet player from the Six Flags gig. Back in the day, he was finishing up his masters in music at Georgia State. He was a really nice guy that could play rings around us all. I remember being jealous of his improv ability. Wait, I'm jealous of EVERYONE'S improv ability.

After reminding him who I was, he got a big smile on his face and wanted to catch up. Not to be rude, but the show was at places and I needed to get the hell out of the way. I passed my card along, hinted strongly for him to email me, and got back to work.

This post doesn't have a point. It's just a marker in time for me to reference later.

Overseas Skirts

Jojo kept a journal during Modern Skirts' recent overseas tour. The journal has been posted here and the photo gallery is here.

Up down up down up down up

When we started dieting, my goal was to lose 25 pounds. I started at 210 and have gotten down to 190-193 (depending on the day of the week). We're both eating healthier, we feel better, but I'm at the point where I have to realize that dieting is only going to take me so far. The last five pounds are going to take a different form of effort. And by effort I mean exercise, and by exercise I mean hell. And by hell, I mean scalding hot branding irons shoved up my nose.

I dislike exercise much much more than I dislike making the bed. In my world there are only two good reasons why you should ever sweat; sex and yard work. That's it. But it turns out that my vanity is stronger that my desire not to sweat.

So yesterday, I started 100 push ups. I altered it a little bit. I'm doing it every other day instead of three days a week. I am a touch sore today, but in a good way. I'm hoping that blogging about it will give me the extra incentive I need to stick with it.

One body area started; everywhere else to go.

Durrr

Twitter is down or else this would go over there.

Durrr vs. Helmuth in a cash game on PAD. If you know the history between the online monster and PH, then you know how much fun this is to watch.

Work. Still. Busy. More Bulllets.

I made and ate squash and zucchini. It was delicious. Thank you.

I'm eating at the Las Vegas location of RUB in a few weeks. Check out the item on the menu under the heading of Specialties called "The Baron".

There's an issue with iPhoto so I'm heading to the Apple store tomorrow for my scheduled meeting with a "Genius".

Today, I watched this show rehearse. Blew. My. Mind. It's in town until August 3rd and I can't wait to take it the whole thing this weekend.

Dear Rev. Jesse Jackson,
Shut up. And to use a phrase you might be familiar with; "Walk the walk." If you can't. Then go away. Forever.
K? Thx. Bai.

Loving my iPhone.

Best Niece ever.

Guess which one is pooping their pants.

EAT THIS!!! Nom nom nom nom nom

Yeah, work's busy; what was your first clue?

Jello Sugar Free - 60 Calories
Banana Fudge Supreme Pudding
DELICIOUS!!!

Bullets

On Sunday, I spent some serious quality time standing in line with a Christian author, a newly married Italian woman and her American husband and two really nice Apple employees. During the time we shared together, we saw several adults try to cut in line. Who does that? They were bounced.


Work is very consuming as of late. I'm not complaining; it's just the ebb and flow of the job.

I really like what I've heard of the Willie Nelson/ Wynton Marsalis album.

3 years later; the scientology episode of South Park is still hilarious.

I just saw a commercial for the new 90210 complete with the same theme song. Was this reinvention really necessary?

The frequency in which Internet Explorer crashes is award-winningly crazy.  Almost predictable.  Almost.
 

Weekend wrap, now with poorer sentence structure

I hopped out of work early on Friday to hightail it to Athens.  Upon arriving in the Classic City, I parked my butt at Trappeze to have two cask pints of Victory Storm King Stout.  Can you say; "My that IS a delicious beverage."  Georgia Girl and I split the tasty hummus plate while she had DFH's Festina Peche.

After our snack we picked up Brett and Meghan and headed back downtown to meet Gunner and Leigh at The Idiot.  Insert two hours of laughter and memories here followed by everyone going back to Brett's.  Laugh until 3 AM. 

Instead of heading straight home, I dropped GG in the middle of the woods so she could go camping with the girls.    While she was roughing it and going down the Broad River, I took a nap. Excellent nap. 

Sunday morning I went to Lenox mall to stand in line for four hours to make a purchase.  It is excellent.

Keep this down

This is the worst idea I've heard in a long time.

Real Estate Blueball

This is a rough transcript of the two phone calls I received this afternoon from a random real estate agent starting at 4:30 PM.

REA: Hi, I apologize for the late notice, but may I show your house to some potential buyers at 6:30 tonight?

Me: Of course, but could you push it back to 6:45.  That would give me time to get home and put the dog up before you arrive.

REA:  We can do that.  Thanks!

5:00 PM.  Same real estate agent.  Different phone call.

REA:  Hi, sorry to bother you again.  But you have the house on 1234 Sesame Street right?

Me: Yes.

REA:  Oh I'm sorry, I meant to call the owner of 1243 Sesame Street.  Just wanted to let you know that we wouldn't be stopping by. 

House showing FAIL.

Things that don't make the internet.

Snippets or ideas of fullen written posts that I decided not to publish. 

A conversation with Georgia Girl about the birthing room invite list.  By the way, if you're not me or if your title doesn't ryhme with; "Smoctor", you're not on the list.  There was no reason to have this conversation.  None.  Head/desk.

July 4th and spending it with old friends and total strangers at the same time.  In a nut shell, the evening brought back memories I didn't care for, others I did and reminders of mistakes and first times.  It's a cliche; but we all change and we all stay the same.  The evening was Exceptionally awkward and very awesome at the same time.  But I left with one very happy thought; life turns out exactly how it's supposed to.  KC it's always great to see you!  Come visit more often.

The awesomeness of Au Bon Pain soups. 

Back pain.  Mine.  Not GG's.  Going back to the doc next week.  I'm laying on the couch and my leg is tingling.  Not acceptable. 

Part of me feels guilty for not serving in the military.  I'm in awe of people that do/did serve but mainly, just to keep the family tradition alive. 

People falling down = Very Very Funny

With the title serving as my humor baseline; the new ABC show, Wipeout, makes me laugh with the intensity normally reserved for the elderly or mentally challenged.

Savannah, the wonder dog, just tried to rappel off the back of the overstuffed chair without a rope.  While I find people falling down hysterical; I am not amused by the thought of my 7 pound dog taking a head first, 3 foot dive, into the hardwood floor.  As she went over the edge, we caught the sight of her tail disappearing and sounds of frantic scratching as she tried to slow her decent.

While Georgia Girl laughed her ass off at the situation, I got up and raced to help the poor thing.  By the time I made it to the chair Savannah had climbed the wooden window blinds back to the top of the chair.  With her heart racing she looked at me with a face that said; "Dad!  What the fuck was that?"

I <3 Cupertino; Part 2

Here is the time line from my recent exchange with Apple Care.

Friday, June 27th - Reported broken keyboard.

Monday, June 30th - DHL box delivered to the house.

Tuesday, July 1st, 8:00 AM - Schedule pickup from DHL.
Tuesday, July 1st, 4:00 PM - DHL picks up package.

Wednesday, July 2nd, 7:30 AM - Email from Apple, confirms receipt of package.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 8:20 PM - Email from Apple, repair complete, shipping back via FedEx with shipping number

Thursday, July 3rd, 8:55 AM FedEx attempts delivery. Signature required and I'm at work.
Thursday, July 3rd, 5:00 PM Retrieve laptop from FedEx location in Marietta.

It took longer to receive the shipping box from DHL than it took for the entire repair process. This is why I love Apple.

Typical Friday night

Dear Georgia Girl,

Attempting to scare me when I come out of the bathroom with not make your drunken hiccups go away.

Sincerely,

Me

Schadenfreude - Sousa style

Last Sunday I had a Patriotic gig cleverly disguised as two worship services.

The second piece was a version of Battle Hymn of the Republic that begins with field drum and a muted trumpet fanfare duet. It's a very exposed part that I really wanted to play well to set the tone for the rest of the piece. With four bars to go in the opening march, I went ahead and turned the page to Battle Hymn while keeping an eye on the conductor. At the end of the march he conducted a beautiful lengthy stinger which I trustingly played. It was a solo.

We've all sighed at "The Idiot" that plays the stinger when there's not one, but in 20 years of playing, I've never been THAT guy. Until last Sunday.

We both apologized to each other during the break and he decided to add the stinger in for the 2nd service. This time with the full ensemble.

Filling my belly with the finest meat items

Back in March Tony wrote about the wings at The Local.

I concur.

Apple and Comcast

I was getting a little pissy with the shipping of my laptop yesterday. After calling DHL at 8:00 AM to notify them of a pickup, they didn't come by until 4:00 PM. I figured the delay was going to cost me at least a day in having the computer returned to me. To my amazement, Apple Care emailed this morning to say that the laptop arrived overnight!

And as an added bonus, the Comcast technician scheduled for last night, actually showed up!!! Besides showing up, which the tech on Sunday failed to do, he solved all of my Internet related problems. He first asked about my issues and what customer support had said. He rolled his eyes when hearing what I had been repeatedly fed.

I took him upstairs (wait for it) where he swapped out the modem and began testing the line. His equipment showed that our signal was full of interference. When he went back outside to check the main line, he found the connector full of white dust, a clear sign of corrosion. He quickly replaced the outside connector and also the inside line. After a retest of the line, he declared me the winner of a squeaky clean signal.

I feel like an idiot for forgetting his name, but it's on the paper work at home. I've already written the praise letter that I will be emailing to everyone at Comcast. (If only their customer service folk would get a clue, they might not drive me to get Uverse when it rolls out.) Needless to say this technician was amazing! He was nice, friendly, funny, and competent; everything you'd want in a stranger that you have to invite into your home. Did I mention that he's also a great snuggler?

Firepops and other such exploding items

Last weekend was a whirlwind of not sleeping in. It started Friday night right after work with a brain storming session for the 48 Film Project. The idea is really simple, you have 48 hours to make a 4 to 6 minute video.

At the outset, you're given a genre and three required elements that must appear in the film. This prevent teams from creating any portion of their film ahead of time. I was on team "Quixotica", the same people that made Backlot Insiders. We drew the genre of Drama and the required items for all teams were:
Required Line of Dialogue; "What do you mean we're out of it?"
Required Prop; a frozen drink
Required Character; Sidney Vintia, a meteorologist.

Our fearless leaders of Mel and Aaron and Aaron's brother Brad stayed up all night writing the script and storyboarding the film. We started filming early Saturday morning only taking short breaks between scenes, and a decent break for lunch. Shooting completed at 9 PM, where Kit and I hightailed it to Wild Wing to devour dinner and beer.

Mel and Aaron stayed up again to edit and attach David Krosner's music to the film.

I was surprised by A) how tired I was at the end of the day B) How much fun I had C) How much I learned throughout the day and D) How thankful I was that I did not have to stay up all night editing. Especially given that I had two - 4th of July/church services the next morning.

Our screening along with the 14 others in "Group C" is Thursday night at 7:00 PM at Landmark Midtown Art Cinema and tickets are 10 dollars if anyone is interested. I've been told to arrive early or I won't get a seat.

The film is posted online here but if you think you're going to see me making my acting debut, you're out of your mind. I did a stellar job of not getting cast and instead doing the following credited jobs.

Director of Photography - I have no idea what that means, but Aaron and Mel said I did it, so there you go.
Assistant Director - Again, not sure what I did but they said I kicked ass at it.
Lighting - Self explanatory
Script Supervisor - I think this refers to the time I reminded the cast of how much fake champagne should be in their glasses during different portions of shooting.
Propmaster - Using Kit's formula, I made fake champagne and daiquiris. I also constructed the fake belly but Aaron attached it to Destiny.
Gaffer - No idea what I did to land this title.
Balloon Artist - Insert jokes here.

Full on credits below. Kit had the funniest character name.
Written by: Mel S.
Directed by: Aaron Childers
Edited by: Mel S. and Aaron Childers
Original Music Composed by: David Krosner
"Dancing Child" written and performed by Michael Levine
Music Editor: Aaron Childers
Production Assistant: J. Clay Harmon
Destiny played by Christy Cherry
Jasmine played by Mel S.
Donald played by Brad Childers
Richard played by David Krosner
Tad the Douche was Kit Kitchens
Ember played by Sheatia Seymour
Reesa played by Kiana Collins
Erin played by Allison Platt
Sidney Vintia played by J. Clay Harmon

Apple can haz trip?

The DHL box Apple sent was waiting for me on the front porch when I got home from work. I backed up the hard drive last night and after reading the entire Internet this morning, I powered it off and packed it for its trip to Apple Care.

I am now without personal computer for the foreseeable future (5-7 days according to Apple). This is the opposite of perfect timing with Comcast coming out tonight to adjust my Internet signal and replace my modem. In the dialogue with @comcastacres (a Twitter-er), I have learned that my signal is at 3 when it should be between 1 and -1. I have no idea what those numbers mean and could care less. Is it too much to ask that you receive what you pay for? Is that asking too much? They did fork over a whopping ten dollar credit for all of the recent resolution FAIL they've been dishing out.

In all my bitching and whining about Comcast Customer service, I have to say that @comcastcares has been nothing but awesome and far superior to dealing with anyone at Customer Service. These persons monitor Twitter for such updates as; "Hating Comcast" and swoop into help. So far, so good. At this point, the only thing prohibiting a successful resolution is if the technician is a no show this evening like he/she was this past Sunday. At which point I explode all over @comcastcares' face and not in the fun and enjoyable way.