Geek Coaster Shots

Okay, I was awakened to an entire new geek subculture. It’s kind of hard to explain, but basically groups of people whip out a chess board (or some other game) and pose for one of those pictures they take of you when you’re on a roller coaster. Maybe I’ll let a picture explain it:

You really need to see the whole series to do this justice. You can’t believe how many of them there are.

Is it just me, or can you totally picture the Rupleys doing this?

Via Jackie’s twitter.

Frontera Grill

Over the weekend we hit up another new restaurant, Frontera Grill. This place was a little pricier than we usually go in for. Run by famous Chicago chef-restaurateur Rick Bayless, it serves some truly awesome, authentic Mexican food. It’s also right downtown in a pretty touristy area, another thing we don’t usually do.

Let me back up a second and say how it is we came to be interested in this place. They make awesome salsa. I can imagine most people might eat at the restaurant and then seek out the salsa at the store afterwards, but it kind of happened the opposite for us. We’ve been getting their truly impressive salsa at the store for some time now.

So we went to check the place out, but we pulled our usual trick of going really, really early so that we can be in and out with Evie before the place gets too crowded. The problem is that the plan falls down when a place is so busy that it’s always crowded. There was a line already when we got there 15 minutes before they opened. They told us we would get a table in about 45 minutes.

We spent some time at the fanciest McDonalds I have ever seen, before eventually making it into the restaurant. Despite the wait, and despite the hype, the place still blew me away. The food was amazing. We had a couple of appetizers and entres of course, and even a margarita. With the exception of some salsa that was roughly the temperature of the sun, each thing was more delicious than the last.

I can’t recommend the place highly enough, we will definitely be back there again.

As far as everything else, work is really killing me at the moment, so I didn’t do much else besides work over the weekend. So I apologize for the lack of quotes, etc. Hopefully we’ll be on track again next week.

Bacon Narwhal!

What is more delicious than chicken? Chicken wrapped in bacon. What is more delicious than that? Chicken wrapped in bacon in the shape of a narwhal. The narwhal is the most delicious animal shape known to man, FACT.

Of course I wouldn’t just tease you with a great picture like that without providing the link to the recipe.

In case you are wondering, the horn is cheese. Of course, you wouldn’t have to have the cheese-horn, but then you’d just have a whale. And who wants just a whale, when you could have had a narwhal? Nobody, that’s who.

Link courtesy Meg, who, I heard through the grapevine, may be considering an entirely narwhal-centric blog.

The Bongo Room

Over the weekend we found yet another amazing breakfast place, the Bongo Room. We knew about this place and had wanted to try it out for some time, so we finally gave it a go. The thing is, it’s just around the corner from our other favorite breakfast place, Yolk. The first time we just sort of flipped a coin between the two and ended up going to Yolk. It was so good, we never really had a reason to look for another place.

So you can’t help comparing the two places. The thing is, it turns out it’s not really as much of a head to head competition as you might have expected.  Although they both serve breakfast, Yolk has more choices in the savory department (like egg-based things) and the Bongo Room has more choices in the cake-y department (like pancakes).

The things that we had at the Bongo Room certainly were amazing. Sara had an apple French toast with crushed up ginger snaps on top. I had red velvet pancakes with a white chocolate sauce. It was basically like eating a cake for breakfast! The interesting thing was that 3 of us independently made the comment that, although our food looked really decadent, it wasn’t too sweet. That is, it was plenty sweet, but not to where you were thinking, “I can’t eat all of this” (although it should be noted that I could not, in fact, eat all of it). There were also plenty of choices that looked good that I wasn’t able to order, so future visits should not be a problem.

The Bongo Room is much smaller, with nowhere really to wait. I imagine it could be hard to get in at times. We’ve had to wait for awhile at Yolk, but it is a huge place, with plenty of waiting room.

So, at the end of the day, I highly recommend either place. I guarantee you will not be disappointed! As to deciding between the two, it would depend on what you are in the mood for. For savory, I’d still go with Yolk, but for sweet, choose the Bongo Room.

The Library Book Incident

Let me start by saying that Evie is an amazingly good kid. She very, very rarely does anything to really get in trouble. Furthermore, let me say that we sort of brought about this situation by planning a day that was a little rough for her. She missed meal times and she missed nap time. So, by the time we finally did get her down for a nap, she was sort of past the point of no return.

So, more or less, the library book incident involved her ripping the crap out of the book, when she was supposed to be taking a nap. I mean, utterly destroying, every single page removed. It was sort of spectacular in it’s destruction.

Now, since she doesn’t usually do things like this, Sara and I were sort of at a loss for what to do. We told her how naughty it was and gave her a time-out, but she just didn’t seem to really get it. She told me later, the reason she ripped up that book was because it wasn’t hers. She knew on some surface level that she was wrong, but there wasn’t really any indication that she wouldn’t just do it again, if given the chance.

I felt like it was important that she be the one to tell the librarian that she ripped up the book. This technique probably works pretty well for a little older kids, but she’s a little too young to be cowed by such a thing. I still think it was the right thing to do though. The library was open for another 45 minutes or so, so we hopped in the car so we could take care of it while it was still fresh in her mind.

I felt pretty bad when, on the way to the library, she was saying to herself, “You have to apologize. You always apologize before you go to the police.” Ouch! I explained to her that we were not going to the police, just the library, but I kind of thought, “Maybe we’re overdoing it a little bit.” It only got worse.

She never did manage a nap, so as soon as we got in the car, she was out. When we got to the library she was in that state that kids get into sometimes where they are so tired that nothing else matters in the world. She tried walking with her eyes closed. She grabbed on to the legs of people she didn’t know, clinging to them for support. She couldn’t support her own weight, slumping to the floor when I wasn’t physically holding her up. So here we are waiting in line so that she can apologize to the librarian, and I’m trying everything to wake her up. I felt like everyone was judging me, thinking, “Geez, no wonder this kid did this, her parents are clearly not letting her nap, etc.” In short, I felt like a child abuser. She did apologize (and wake up) at some point. We also returned all the other library books and didn’t get any more.

I feel like we handled it pretty well. Anybody else have similar experiences? Horror stories? Support, sympathy, ridicule? Share in the comments.

Lost in 5 minutes

The new (and final) season of Lost starts in about 10 minutes. So, for those of you who haven’t been watching the show, you have *just* enough time to get completely caught up.

Link courtesy Finally Lost.

I guess she always gets what she wants

Me: “Well, we don’t always get what we want.”
Evie: “You and mommy?”

Evie: “Do I have to keep my socks on? Is it the law?”

After soccer practice, we were watching the big kids (adults and teens) play a soccer tournament. Evie asked, “Will they get butterfly stamps too?”

Sara: “Throw up in the toilet, like mommy!”
Instructions that immediately made sense to Evie, even in her sickened state. She was 3 for 3.

Me: “What number is two ones?”
Evie: “I don’t know, what?”
Me: “You know! What number is it?”
Evie: “I don’t know.” ::whispering to me:: “Say eleven!”

At least one city councilman is concerned

The residents of Lawndale, California are causing a stink over the town’s plants. Apparently, the roads are lined with garlic–which either smells like skunk or marijuana depending on who you talk to. KTLA did a report on the dispute and spoke with Councilman Jim Ramsey who argued against the removal of the plants.

Starts off pretty reasonable, right? Standard stuff? Let me get you some quotes from Jim Ramsey:

“The only reason why we ever had garlic put in, is so we could keep the vampires out of town. And since we have had garlic, I haven’t seen one, single, solitary vampire in town.”

“Oh, these plants are protecting the city, and if we take them out, we may have vampires in here again.”

You can see the full video here, or the abridged version here.

I think this is awesome. We need to elect more guys who are concerned with the REAL issues. What’s your councilman concerned about? Zoning?

And furthermore, is someone looking into these “humans” that are complaining about the smell??

Snuggie

For Christmas, I got a snuggie. This is something I would never buy for myself, but when I got one, I was kind of excited.

For those not in the know, a snuggie is something sold in late night infomercials that combines a blanket and a shirt. Basically, it is a blanket with sleeves.

The height of fashion AND comfort!

I have to tell you, it doesn’t seem like much, but it is better than I could have imagined.

You don’t think about how often you need your arms when you’re in a blanket. Normally, you probably just pop your arms out and do something and then go back. Or, maybe you just have the blanket over your back, not over your front. But if you could keep your arms in, it would obviously be better.

Sometimes the best inventions are the little things. Also, I should point out that this blanket happens to be Nala colored, so cat hair is not a problem.

So if you come to my house, expect to see me imperiously strutting around in my tan-colored robe, smug as smug could be.

More Search Terms

As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I am endlessly fascinated by some of the things that people google which result in them landing on my blog. So here are some of the highlights. These are broken down into a few categories of amusement, 1) what the heck was that person searching for, 2) how did that search land on my blog, 3) I don’t know why someone was searching for that, but amazingly, I have a blog post for them!

What the heck was that person searching for?

• ‘tactical mayonnaise’ – Lunch tactics? Or war tactics?
• ‘resplendent start with the dead’ – I don’t know what that means, but I’ve had that one no less than 4 times!
• ‘pull out fingernails’ – Yeesh. No thank you!
• ‘human zombie cat’ – Yeesh! NO THANK YOU! Stitch together your sick creations on someone else’s blog thank-you-very-much. I have enough trouble with a living, non-human-hybrid cat.
• ‘jelly fish hunting fighting boats’ – What could that even mean? It conjures images of sea battles with giant mutant jelly fish.

How did that search land on my blog?

These are usually things that I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about, but I do in fact agree with or support. So it’s like Google detected that these people think like me and led them to my blog, despite me never mentioning anything of the sort.

• ‘are “two question” marks aggressive’ – I don’t know how they found me, but for any future searches on this topic: Yes. Yes they are.
• ‘awesome cat’ – Okay, I had a couple of hits on this one, but I’m not sure how those found me. I have the opposite. But I did get a hit on ‘nusiance cats’, so that one I understand.
• ‘what do zombie pirates say?’ – I really don’t know. But I kind of feel like, if anybody should know, I should know, right?
• ‘where there be pirates’ – Was this a search by an actual pirate?!
• ‘i grit my teeth when i pet my cat’ – My favorite, hands down. It describes my position exactly. I don’t think I ever said that on my blog though, so how did they end up here?

I don’t know why someone was searching for that, but amazingly, I have a blog post for them!

• ‘big headed chiquita bananas’ – Lead to this post, in which I mention the chiquita banana lady, but not the size of her head.
• ‘bacon evie’ – Now those are good search terms for finding me! I get a lot of ‘erith1 is this thing on?’ searches, but those are more obvious. What if ‘bacon evie’ was looking for someone else?
• ‘litter box in bathroom curtain AND cat peed on curtains why’ – I soo feel for the desperation of the person searching for this. Now, my cat didn’t pee on my curtains, but my story did involve both cat pee and a curtain. So I wasn’t too far off.
• ‘picklerita’ – Wow, I actually had a good post for them! There can’t be that many picklerita posts out there.
• ’she toot on me’ – ::sigh:: but I did get a ‘toot hole’ search, so maybe the phrase is catching on!