Entree the Giant

Kiki and I went to a french place for dinner Friday. Mon Ami Gabi at Oakbrook. It was excellent. It occured to me that If I ever won a restaurant (The Cleveland Steamer: Working title), I will offer a dinner special called Entree the Giant. You'd get 2 entress for a reduced price.
I saw that Prestige movie this weekend. Can anybody explain to me how/why tesla got involved? Also, didn't Bowie's Tesla remind you of Ricky Gervais?
Then Sunday I shoveled impossibly heavy amounts of snow. It was like shoveling 4 inches of straight slush.
Yes, I would like some cheese with that wine.
Speaking of which, my sister took me to lunch today at Chicago's Pizza. The one on Sheffield. I went back to try the deep fried calzone. I am on a calzone quest much like my buffalo chicken sandwich quest. This one spurred by a restaurant at Illinois State University that had a pure dynamite calzone. They were called Pizza World, Which is ironic because they had abyssmally shitty pizza. Hence, they closed.
Anyway, Chicago's pizza's deep-fried Calzone is like eating an elephant ear at a street fair stuffed with pepperoni and cheese. It was a little too much for me, garbage disposal that I am.

Miette is a Genius

So, you've seen those commercuals where the baby points at pictures of presidents in the book and names them, right?
Well in the vein of her daddy who indentified Mao Tse Tung on a Time Magazine cover when I was in the cart at the grocery as a lad, Miette is a genius.
I have taught her to identify and say Dusty Rhodes. She also says John Cena when she sees his Subway commercial.
I couldn't be prouder.

Sweating the fat drop...

I apparently created a stink inadvertently on Yelp when I reviewed Baby Wants Candy. People called me a shill in the forums and said that I started a bunch of fake user ids to leave them reviews. It got ugly, but the more sensible Yelpers came to my aid. It sucked. I actually felt really hurt by the accusations.
What I wanted to share with you, though, is my contribution regarding a Yelper asking if he should take his 11-year-old nephew to WWE Raw:
02/16/2007 Alfonso B. says:I have an 11 year old nephew who wants me to take him to the next WWE Raw. He is a very good kid and usually is granted what he wants by his uncles. However, I don't approve of the violence that is portrayed in WWE and I would hate for any negative behavior to develop in him from seeing all of this live. His mother is also not sure what the call should be on this one... Are there any folks her on yelp with kids who can provide some input??? Thanks
My Reply:
I saw Hogan v. Nicolai Volkoff in a flag match in 1984 at The Rosemont Horizon. It is one of my favorite childhood memories. I would have been 10 or 11, and that was indeed then. This is now. The experience of a live WWE show is considerably raw-er (pun intended) than the old WWF. Mostly because of idiot fans. My brother has a saying: "I love Wrestling, but I hate Wrestling fans". I say take your nephew, but be ready to discuss some of the things you hear the fans around you yell. Probably the most unsavory will be the crowd reaction to the women wrestlers. If you can reinforce that gentlemen do not chop their crotches and yell "show your T*ts!", he won't be scarred at all. That said, I have tickets to RAW, and will be there. As much as I cringe hearing some of the things said in the crowd, nothing matches the excitement you feel at a live WWE event. I'm almost 32. I've probably been to 50 live events. I can promise you, though, that when the lights go down and the pyrotechnics start, I will have chills.

Doin' it all for my bay-bay

Thanks, Huey Louis.
I had a great 3-day weekend. I took Monday off 'cause Kiki had it off.
Friday Kiki's best friend hit town.
Saturday we had brunch with great friends and great bits. It's intimidating to know such staggeringly funny people. The line of the brunch though came from my friend Joey's wife Heather. We were making fun of the flamingo that comes with Miette's Fisher-Price zoo. It has really thick legs that we were calling cankles. Heather said that she was relieved to see a more realistic portrayal of Flamingos because "only 3% of all flamingos are built like the ones you see in magazines"!
Saturday night, DF became the George W. Bush of comedy when we lost the popular vote in the cage match, but the judges, Jason Chin and Danny Mora voted us over the other team.
Sunday we relaxed and went to an estate sale. It was a cool sale save for the following:
At some point, a hugely fat man entered the kitchen of the sale. I never saw his face, because he stank up the kitchen so bad that I wouldn't go in there. He was clad in shorts, sneakers he'd slipped on, and a jacket. The shorts are worth noting because on his leg was a massive open sore that looked like gangrene. This thing was 9 by 4 inches and unbelievably nasty. I promptly left and I STILL have the willies. No dressers, as is my quest, but my wife netted some neat costume jewelry.
Monday was for Miette. For the first time in her life, we played in the snow. She had been to little last year, and it had been too cold this year. My parents bought her a sled we were finally able to use. We have just enough of a hill in the front yard to be thrilling for a 21-month-old.
On the first trip down, the sled overturned and her face got buried in the snow.
She quickly recovered, though, and was squealing "Again! Again!" when she got to the bottom.
We had Hot chocolate and then went to lunch. We went to a place called 2 Toots. Their tagline is "Great food served on Toy Trains". It was about like you'd imagine, but with more screaming kids. Check my review on Yelp! if you're thinking of going. I know how you like trains.

Snow Day?

I wish. I trudged up in here in boots I found out all too late were not waterproof.
Miette's daycare lady only does teachers' kids. Probably 7 of the 9 kids go to Lisle schools, and they were on a snow day. The daycare lady was very disappointed not to have a day off...
I went through a huge box of paper and found some solid bits I intend to post here. Stay Tun't.

You may soon see me in a new T-Shirt...

From HERE.
Whadda we think about Hammer?
P.S. the Get Yours Posse does NOT get the Gas Face.

BTW

We got some 100-level tickets for RAW 3/26. Anybody need 2 on the 200-level?

Random 'n' pointed

I'm tired of this fucking cold.
I hate that I love LOST so much.
I went to an estate sale this weekend that advertised Star Wars and GI Joe toys; I used to be a huget collector. I still have a huge collection, but Miette has take the place of my free time (gleefully so). Anyway, I traveled through this person's howse to spot the deals (there weren't any. They had tagged all the items at book price. Book price, for you non-collectors, means that there are guides out there that state the estimated values of old toys. The rule of thumb is that you can probably get half the "book price" at any given time. If you want to know something's realistic value, go to eBay and to a completed item search for it. But I digress...) behind a behemoth in vintage nerd glasses, a vintage blackhawks ski hat, and camo pants that were perilously close to falling off his saggy ass.
The collector. Having gome to a few toy shows in the past, this guy was easy to spot. If you've been to any manner of collectibles show, you know the sort.
It reminded me of a tale of my past. My mom took me to Lisle Drug when I was in elementary school. As I often did, I bee-lined for the comics and garbage pail kids. I'm pretty sure I was reading the graphic novel of the movie 2010, noticing that they'd replaced the movie dialogue "Holy Shit" with "holy Spit!". As my mom came to get me, a high-school aged fat kid walked in. It had been raining that day, and he apparently had ridden through the mud to get to Lisle Drug. He had a huge mud stripe of back spackle (thank you, Sniglets) on his sweatpants.
My mom turned to me and asked, "Is that what you're gonna lok like when you're that age?"
Big strike out at the estate sale, especially on a dresser, the one Item I am in search of is a dresser for my good Deanna.

Now for some REAL sports

I watched that Super Bowl. It was great for the first 4 minutes.
Raw was uncharacteristically good last night. Maybe they'de done something the Bears couldn't do and decided to get serious.
They come back to Chicago 3/26, 6 days after my 32nd birthday, 9 days after my brother's 26th. Guess what we're asking for for our birthdays?

Colder than the proverbial witch's eye.

Monday I was 100 yards from my house in lined pants, knee socks, boots, an undershirt, a button-down, a sweater, my warmest coat, 2 scarves and a fur earflap hat when my right eye started to freeze. I'd heard the stats on how long it takes exposed things to freeze a hundres times and always doubted them. However, it was 8 below when I started walking without the wind chill. When the wind hit my face, my right eye literally started to freeze. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. Eventually I calmed down and walked most of the way with my eyes closed, but that was some scary shit. I can still feel on my eye where the freezing happened. Bundle up, y'all.

Here's to first Fridays...Tonight is kinda Special

IO has a first friday thing where they give away pizza and wings and let people try the new beers for the month (for a fee, of course). I was down with nothing to do until 8 or so, so I braved the cold and met my pal Tim there. It was a great time, though I new only 4 people (one of them was Charna). I had a draft, then the flight of drafts (35 ounces all told), and left there quite drunk.
Here's my problem with most micro brews; they feel like they have to taste so distinctive that you'll instantly know they're not mass-produced. Most are brown and have that sweetened coffee mixed with beer and sprite taste that makes you have dragon breath. There are so many great dark or brown beers that have taste and color without having to have a flowery saccarine taste that I'd imagine what someone with maple syrup urine disease pees out.
I think I talked the bar manager into doing a cheap beer flight - This would be 5 lowbrow beers like high life(which is awesome), pbr, old milwaukee, Milwaukee's best and Hamms. I'll definitely go back if they do that. I'd go back anyway.