two dolla

entertainment sixteen years ago

I’m not sure where all this verbosity is coming from today. I even took a two hours nap and did some cleaning. Between playing Mafia Wars on Facebook and a game that I downloaded forever ago called Ranch Rush, I guess I need something else to keep me busy while I watch CSI: Miami. (Yes, I’m still hooked on that show!)

Over Thanksgiving, my li’l bro and I were talking about how we used to play with BB guns a lot when we were kids. We got standard safety lessons and were only allowed to shoot aluminum cans. And black birds if they were trying to eat the dog’s food, as long as we promised not to kill robins or blue jays. I think we forgot to talk about the times we used to shoot the guns into what we used to call “the playroom”. The tiny little bullet would ricochet off about seven different things before finally lodging itself inside a book or turning a little yellow Lego man into “The Man With No Face”.

Once I got old enough to do other things, like go to high school, my brother’s best friend (who’s now a cop with the Kansas Citiy police department) took control of my BB gun and then there was trouble. I remember our backyard looking like some sort of psycho gun range with lawn chairs for the boys to hide behind and old Pepsi cans hanging from shoe strings off the swingset’s monkey bars. You could look out the back windows and see our dog peering out of his dog house, while two scrawny eleven year olds wearing a makeshift holster for their BB rifle would dive “for safety” behind a tractor tire sandbox, blasting one BB after another into the Rambo action figure lodged in our favorite climbing tree.

Man, I think if something like that happened today, sixteen years later, there’d be three police cars, a possible SWAT team, and child protective services banging down the door. I kinda miss 1992.

time for a theme change

Except, here’s the thing – I can’t find any that I love. So, for all of you fantastic individuals that are as lazy as I am and use WordPress, but don’t feel like coming up with something on your own – where do you find your favorite WP Themes? I’m open to any suggestions at this point!

And as a trade off, I’m gonna share with you my favorite WP Plugin that I finally installed just this afternoon after covering it for quite sometime once I saw it on The General’s blog. It’s called CyStats. I’ve been using SiteMeter for years. While it’s still completely functional, it’s super nice to be able to login to WP and see all that good stuff, too.

CyStats is smart, too! For instance, did you know it’s been 2564 since my first blog post? Other bits of trivia courtesy of this little plugin:

• Suzi is my most frequent commenter.
• Someone stumbled upon this here blog when searching for “skank scat”.
• It reminded me of my time of unemployment last year when I stayed up late watching Britney Spears being carted out of her home on a gurney thanks to TMZ. (I could have used a serious intervention there, dudes!)

Anyway, it’s one of my favorite plugins now and I’m sure I’ll be obsessing over it for quite some time to come.

wendy’s awesome company

It doesn’t really happen so much now that I have a job where I honestly love going into work every day. Prior to that, though, when I worked at Hey, Use Your Grant Money To Buy Our Crappy Software Instead of All That Other Stuff Your School Needs, Inc, I was always trying to come up with a way to find something new to do and have a valid reason to quit that crap hole. And who better to work for than myself, right?

While I’ve always thought I’d have a good time running my own business (named Wendy’s Awesome Company, of course, since someone already stole the name Wendy’s), I’ve never really come up with an idea that would make me millions. And, really, if I’m going to run my own business, I better be making some millions. I’ve gotta have something to pay my minions with.

I’ll occasionally do a bit of research on the whole thing, like on Sundays when I only manged to sleep for about two hours last night. (Hey, sometimes I run out of things to read on the internet!) I don’t know a lot about digging up working capital or any other kind of loans that could get Wendy’s Awesome Company up and running, but it’s good to know I can use the internet as a resource for that kind of thing. I’m sure whatever company I come up with, though, will just have people begging to throw money my way. Obviously! (Or not.)

iron barley and the ballistic elvis

When were in the St. Louis area over Thanksgiving, we headed for a day of touristy type fun in St. Louis proper. Since it was nearing lunch time before five of us got around to leave the house, we opted for stopping for some lunch before sight-seeing at The Gateway Arch. Our lunch spot of choice? Iron Barley. In the several times I’d made visits to The Cuz and fam, I remembered us talking about the place, but I’d never been. Now? I’m adding it to the list of MUST VISIT places when I visit.

The menu was almost impossible to pick from, but I think it’s safe to say we were all extremely happy with what we ordered. Our appetizer, though, is work writing in detail about. Either B. or The Cuz mentioned it and after giving it a lot of thought, we decided to go ahead and order one to split between the four of us. And, because we’re nice, we gave Clara Jane crackers.

What is the Ballistic Elvis? Oh, let me tell you.

American cheese, strawberry preserves, sliced bananas, peanut butter and red pepper flakes. (Read that twice, just because you’ll need to in order to remember it and make it at home.)

All grilled on what looked to be Texas Toast. And, because we couldn’t say no, we added bacon, as the menu suggested.

It came out and I wanted it to be absolutely disgusting. How can you combine all of that and have it be delicious? I love each of the ingredients. On their own. Or perhaps PAIRED together. But all in one? I was scared! I didn’t want one sandwich to ruin my love for bananas or bacon or discount American cheese slices!

It wasn’t disgusting. At all. It was fantastic. So much, in fact, that neither one of us Ballistic Elvis virgins have been able to stop thinking about it ever since. Now, we have groceries to make our own version of it. I hope we get it right, but I’d imagine more testing will be necessary when we return to St. Louis.

• From Riverfront Times
• From Sauce magazine

no, i really like deals

I think I’m paying too much for my webhost. I’ve swapped a couple of webhosts since 2004 or so, and have been, for the most part, quite pleased with the service I’ve received. Not much downtime at all and fairly responsive reaction time if I ever have any technical issues at all. But every time I look into switching hosting companies, I realize everyone else is significantly cheaper than anything I’ve ever paid. With the exception of when it was hosted free, courtesy of The Weblog Review. But there’s only so many domains you can ask a buddy to host for you and I didn’t want to take advantage of that when I get in these I NEED THAT DOMAIN phases. (That would explain why I own tubesocksandasmile.com. Seriously.)

According to the folks at Webhosting Geeks, my current host is the best value for what I use it for. On the other hand, I also noticed that this site full of webhosting reviews happens to feature a very large banner ad alongside the review of its various hosts. They do have some user posted reviews, but as with anything that gets reviewed on the interwebs – they’re slightly jaded and usually posted by the people that are pissed off about one little thing that went wrong, probably caused by their own stupidity.

i’m just sayin’ i like deals

To top off our ridiculously action-packed Saturday that included The General picking up The Boy from a sleepover, me napping the most part of the day, and Martha the Neighbor stopping by to drop off some mail that accidentally got delivered to her mailbox (I told you it was action packed), we decided to go to the grocery store at 7:30 PM. I’ll probably end up adding that time of day to my list of awesome grocery shopping times.

We were on a mission to have groceries for the entire week. We’re trying to save money and we’re trying to eat healthier, so why not help out with both of those and make meals at home, right? We wound up with enough food for seven days of full meals – breakfast (mainly for The General), lunch for both of us, and some of our favorite dinners. We spent less than $80! And, we were both starving when we went, which we realized the second we starting pushing the cart down the junk food aisle to get saltines.

I was overly excited. Spaghetti, stir fry, breakfast for dinner one night… plus, lunch options for me to keep at my desk. I was extremely excited after we finished!

i also realized that there are several talents I wasn’t born with and packing groceries in bags is certainly not one of mine. When I first moved to Minnesota and went grocery shopping, I was so surprised that at discount grocery stores (or whatever Rainbow and Cub are considered) made you pack up your own groceries. You’d think after 6+ years of being here, I’d figure out how to do it on my own… I guess that tells you how often I go grocery shopping.

links for 2008-12-07

• The Dugout: Wait We Forgot The Twins – MLB FanHouse
  We're the Twins. We play in an enormous frozen garbage can. We haven't had a compelling moment since Kirby Puckett lost an eyeball.
• Ron Gardenhire Has No Room for Delmon Young in His Outfield – MLB FanHouse
  This is horribly sad, because who else will we yell BOOM BITCH towards during Twins games?
• Psycho Shower Curtain
  Best shower curtain ever. One day, when I get married, I'm totally putting this on my registry.
• Google Reader: Helvetireader Facelifts Google Reader
  All of your lovely blog feeds never looked so swanky until I installed this puppy.
• Aaron Landry – Paying Your Neighbor’s Utility Bill in Minneapolis
  I found out that my landlord only decides to pay the water bill ever 2-3 months. That explains the notice we had some time ago on the front door letting us know they were going to turn the water off. Our potential new landlord? He pays the bill like clockwork on the first of every month, having it deducted from his checking account.
• Jaws Shower Curtain Shark
  Okay, maybe this one instead. It's slightly more child appropriate.
• It's only complicated when you make it complicated
  I love explodingdog.com.
• Please Don't Bomb Nobody This Holiday
  It's never been a secret that I'm in love with The Dan Band, especially when their video includes Doogie Howser and several instances of boob grabbing/flashing. "You've got to learn to use your frickin' words!"