quote of the day 3

Family circus isn't all bad, however. It keeps the Donna Reed era grandmothers happy, and its radically different spot format gives healthy people somewhere to put their mug while reading.

--Shawn Dream (né Davidson)


This was in response to the March 15, 2005 Family Circus which went like this:

{Jeffy drawing ones and zeroes on a piece of paper, for some unexplained reason}
Billy: "Zeros and ones? Sorry, Jeffy, it's been done!"

Billy: "Bill Gates made billions with zeros and ones in computers. You'll just have to come up with something else."

{Dolly comes running in with a piece of paper with X's and O's on it}
Dolly: "Right! Zeros and X's are better! Hugs and kisses mean love! That's more important than money."






{crickets}

Bryan: "OH MY GOD!!! WHY IS THE FAMILY CIRCUS SO HORRIBLE?!?" {throw comic page in the air}

And yes, that really happened. :)

thxgiving aught-6

Another year, another Thanksgiving feast. All was well as usual. Here are a few poorly-taken pictures of my table "sidepiece":

(Click for larger images)



I call it a sidepiece because it wasn't in the center. Since no one was sitting at that end of the table anyway, I figured it made more sense to set up the cornucopia there. I went asymmetrical with the candles and other stuff too.

Since all but two people requested a vacation day for Friday (and I would have too, if I'd had any vacation days left), my boss decided to close the office. That's fine; I worked the day after Thanksgiving my first year there, and the phone hardly rang, and UPS doesn't ship that day anyhow. Ironically, since I'm doing more customer service and invoice duties now, a day with no phone calls and no shipping would've been an ideal time to catch up on my graphics work, but oh well. I hate having to go to bed early on a holiday. I stopped shopping on Black Friday years ago because I can't stand the traffic (both automobile and pedestrian). My parents and I are going to visit my grandma, who has been living in a nursing home ever since she had a stroke last year.

In spite of the impression I give that food is my favorite part of Thanksgiving, I do still take time out of the day to remember what I'm thankful for. Here's what comes to mind this year:
I'm thankful for...

• Hodgkin's in remission
  
• a job with health insurance
  
• my workplace becoming smoke-free on December 7th whether my boss likes it or not ;)
  
• my parents
  
• playing the piano
  
• 11/7 restoring Tom's (and my) faith in Ohio :D
  
• my friends, all of them, here in Cleveland and elsewhere -- and I don't want to play favorites, but I've grown particularly close to Stu & Laurie in the last few years. I love you guys.

Oh, and one last thing: just to ruin everyone's Thanksgiving, I'll debunk the myth about tryptophan and turkey. What makes people tired is more likely the large quantities of food, not the tryptophan.

quristmas quiz

Once again, a quiz I found via Kristy...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
This reminds me of the quiz that asked if I liked croutons "or" bacon bits. Why can't I like both? In any case, my humble opinion is that egg nog must be served with a little booze, a sprinkle of various brown spices on top, and a cinnamon stick to stir it.

I like Hershey's line of premium powdered hot chocolate (how many oxymorons can I fit into one sentence?). I can't seem to recall the exact name of the product, else I'd link to it, but it's something like "premium select" or "special edition" and is a tan/gold box with a blue banner across the top. It's really good when made mostly with milk and stirred with a peppermint candy cane.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Whoever heard of just setting presents under the tree? Half the fun is in the unwrapping! There are usually a few small items in the stockings as well.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Colors colors colors. The more variety, the better. That's not to say I don't like all-white (or all-any-other-color) in the proper situation. A dark green tree all done up with gold ornaments would look great with white lights. But for a tree with ornaments as eclectic as ours, colors work best.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
If the plastic kind counts, yes.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Thanksgiving night, when everyone wakes up after dinner.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Since Thanksgiving is almost upon us, all I can think about are Aunt Martha's pumpkin pancakes and that awesome gravy mom made last year. But since this quiz is obviously referring to Christmas, I'm not sure I can really pick out a specific dish, but the whole dinner is good times. I always look foward to mom's Christmas granola too.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Oh, where to begin. The time mom got all mad because she misplaced the tape dispenser, only to have Aunt Martha find it in one of her gifts on Christmas morning.

The time mom wrapped two packages and couldn't remember who they were for and wrote "for Dad, maybe Mike" on the label, when it was in fact for Mike's girlfriend.

The time Aunt Martha was locked out of her house on Christmas Eve and slept on our couch.

The time Max barked at the toy train around the tree and kept trying to knock it off the track. (Note to self: digitize this video.)

And that's not counting any of the numerous off-color conversations we've had around the holiday dinner table (which our family manages to do without drinking, amazingly).

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I remember having suspicions around age 7, but I don't recall when it became official. I knew at least part of the story was false, since we didn't have a working chimney. I wasn't terribly distraught, so I played along for a few more years, leaving a plate of cookies and whatnot.

9. Do you open one gift on Christmas Eve?
No matter how much I begged, pleaded, whined, and tantrum'd as a kid, I was never allowed to open anything until Christmas morning. Of course, once morning came, I was the first one up and immediately opened the ones I suspected were particularly good (e.g. the year I got a Game Boy).

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Already mentioned above, but it's quite a mix of waaay too many ornaments collected over the past 50+ years, with those medium-size colored light bulbs and various specialty lights. And that's just the main living room tree. There's also an artificial tree in the family room, which goes up Thanksgiving night, that is mostly ornaments belonging to Mike and me, with colored mini lights. Then a third, smaller artificial tree goes in the dining room, all gold ornaments and garland but no lights. When I was younger, I would set up a 3-foot aluminum tree in my room, complete with color wheel, but now I don't have room for it.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
I love a good snow storm if I don't have to leave the house. Looks like we're having an El Niño this year, so maybe the Lake will go easy on us. I remember there was an El Niño the first winter I had my driver's license, and it was great. :)

12. Can you ice skate?
Never tried, but I would imagine not.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I've had a lot of good ones over the years. Probably one of the coolest toys I had was the Talking Snoopy (same technology as the talking Teddy Ruxpin doll). I also recall being fascinated with the Sesame Street Talk 'N Play, but then, I was fascinated with cassette tapes in general.

In the process of looking for a picture of the Talk 'N Play, I found this site, which has some old '80s commercials. I saw the Hot Wheels Railroad there, which I also had. Children of the '80s, be sure to check out the rest of that site too. Remember Smurf cereal? Bonkers candy? The 'new' Colgate pump toothpaste? That annoying Encyclopaedia Brittanica guy? Damn. Now I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Y'know, back when they still had video games and it wasn't all little-kid stuff.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
The most important thing? Uhh... it helps the economy? I suppose I could offer up the usual "being with family" and "goodwill toward others" and whatnot, but I'm not sure those add up to more than platitudes. Do people really give more to charities at Christmas, or do they simply give less in November and January to make up for it? If Christmas weren't in December, would families get together at a more convenient time of year in better weather for traveling?

What I like about the holidays is the colors and decorations and anticipation. Almost every holiday brings some special food item with it: Thanksgiving has its turkey cookies in my family; Christmas has cookies and chocolates and drinks of various sorts; Easter has its eggs; even July 4th has its barbecued ribs and flag-shaped desserts. I don't know. When I was a kid I always liked decorating for holidays. We have various family traditions that are always nice. I'm not sure if "important" is the right word.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Although I like the smell of pumpkin pie, I've never liked the taste or texture. And I'm not the only one, so my mom also makes a cinnamon-apple-cranberry pie for Thanksgiving. Mmmmm. Then at Christmas we've got candy cane cookies, springerlies, chocolate-mint cookies, and the frosted cut-out cookies. Did I mention cookies?

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I've pretty much already addressed this, but I like our Thanksgiving traditions as a whole, I guess because I like the various courses of food so much. Christmas is a lot more work for everyone.

17. What tops your tree?
An aluminum star with a hole in it for a tree light.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?
A bit of a loaded question there, but giving can be fun too. Last year my aunt had wine on her Christmas list, so I took that as an opportunity to furnish a basket with related items and various frilly ribbons and paper stuffing.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
It's a tossup between "The Christmas Waltz" (as sung by The Lettermen) or "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (as sung by Andy Williams).

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
I love most types of candies that come in cane form, as noted at the end of this post from 2004.

oh, did I mention?

Happiness is:

Being able to go another year without one's eyeglass prescription changing.

Last year I mentioned that it was the first time since age six that I didn't need to get new glasses. In college especially, it seemed like my eyes always changed just as the weather turned cold, so I'd squint at the chalkboard for a few months until I could have my ophthalmology appointment over winter break.

But last year, things never went fuzzy, and the same is true for this year, so I'm still wearing 2004's prescription at the moment. My eyes are perfectly healthy, and my eye doctor even says I'm even a candidate for LASIK, should I so endeavor. Rawk on.

Reading that post I linked above reminded me that it was also two years ago yesterday when I first saw my general practicioner about the lump on my neck that turned out to be Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Cancer, shmancer.

what happened tuesday

"I'm obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election," Bush said. "And as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility."

Ya think?

My personal unresearched unverified analysis is this: Bush and his cohorts, along with many members of the Republican Party, have worked very hard since 9/11 to make this country as divided as possible in order to drum up support for invading Iraq -- all that "if you're not with us, you're against us" malarkey. They also found a temporary sweet spot by pandering to the Religious Right. In the process, they forgot the middle ground. In 2006, the public is getting tired of all the extremism and wants to be centrist again. (Heck, it was earlier than 2006; the Dover, PA school board thought they were following popular opinion when they wedged Intelligent Design into the science curriculum, but all eight of those board members were defeated in 2005.)

But since they've constructed this illusion that each party is one homogeneous unit, the sins and scandals of any one member affect the entire party. Enter Bob Taft, Tom Noe, Mark Foley, Tom DeLay, et al. In Ohio, the voting public was very clearly tired of the scandals surrounding certain members of the Ohio Republican Party, so it affected every race in the state; everything from governor to Second Circuit Municipal Court of Public Domestic Appeals. The only state races they won were for state supreme court, and State Auditor by a narrow margin.

Will the Democrats fare any better? A Congress that's actually capable of passing laws is always a dangerous proposition, so it's hard to say. Power is power and all that. I'm guessing we'll at least see less of the fundamentalist conservative Christian intrusion into our government. The real question is: will The Daily Show ever be the same? :)

As for the smoking issues, I was glad to see Issue 4 defeated by such a large margin, and Issue 5 passed as well. I'll be interested to see how well it's enforced. I've heard it compared to Prohibition, and I'm sure there will still be some rural watering holes where the owner and patrons continue to smoke and agree not to squeal. The difference is that the vast majority of people drink alcohol, whereas the vast majority don't smoke. Drinking is still a fashionable good-ol'-boys-talking-about-life notion; smoking no longer is, except maybe the occasional cigar in one's private home.

For those who are worried about not being able to smoke at work anymore, I'll offer up the wise words a pro-universal-healthcare pro-tax-and-spend pro-union pro-choice anti-smoking-ban socialist once told me: "If ya don't like it, move somewhere else!"

Ouch, too soon?

new favorite restaurant

One nice thing about having friends distributed across Greater Cleveland is that I discover unique and delicious restaurants now and then. Among these are The Winking Lizard (various locations) with their award-winning barbecue sauce and Fat Fish Blue (downtown) with their pecan chicken in Jack Daniels sauce.

Great Lakes Brewing Company over by the West Side Market has outdoor tables in a quaint city-street setting -- as I said to Allen, "like Crocker Park, only not fake." Speaking of Crocker Park, Claddagh Irish Pub is a regional chain that is quickly expanding, and their Balsamic Chicken makes me a very happy guy. Their "shamrock wings" are pretty good too. Cornerstone Brewing Company (formerly Quarryman's Tavern, in downtown Berea) is also good times, particularly the Mediterranean Tilapia -- and this coming from a guy who doesn't usually like fish.

Today, I discovered The Station Restaurant in Berea, which has a trackside dining room and features an old dining car that can be rented for parties. Everything I had there was incredibly delicious. I got the Wings and Ribs (10 wings and 4 St. Louis long bones). Both the Depot BBQ and Dry Cajun Mesquite wings were awesome. They bring four sauces to the table for the ribs, which includes a sort-of-pineapply Texas Sweet Sauce. For dessert, I got the creme brule, which was almost too sugary, but still a happy ending.

I would be remiss in not mentioning The Rush Inn of Lakewood, across from The Beck Center for the Arts. They're a bit pricey for what you get, in my opinion (hey, kinda like the Beck Center's shows -- ooh, zing!), but they do offer specials on different nights of the week. On Mondays, they have tacos in handmade crunchy flour shells for just $2. My friends who I met during Cabaret back in 2003 would meet at The Rush every Monday for drinks and tacos, and we'd occasionally bring in new folks as we continued to do shows (hi, Becki). Even the weekly Monday morning e-mails from Dee (and later, me) became a sort of newsletter about what each of us had going on theatre-wise. After a while, most of us got tired of tacos, so we started going on Tuesdays for half-price wings. The Rush's teriyaki wings are awesome, and they have some good appetizers too, like the orange ginger shrimp and the teriyaki steak with flour tortillas.

We're all really busy now, and the group had dwindled down to just a few regulars, so combine that with the higher gas prices and we don't make it to the Rush that often anymore. Besides, going to the same place week after week did get old after a while, so once there were so few people, it wasn't quite as special. We could've just as easily met anywhere else, and did, on a few later occasions. I remember back in the day, when we first started Taco Monday, Dee and I would be there from 7-11 and there would be three shifts of people coming and going at various times: the teacher/go-to-bed-early crowd, then the we-ate-at-home crowd, then the we-had-to-work-late crowd. It made Monday a day to look forward to.

So that's my list:
The Winking Lizard
Fat Fish Blue
Great Lakes Brewing Company
Claddagh Irish Pub
Cornerstone Brewing Company
The Rush Inn
The Station Restaurant

Anyone know of any other good Cleveland area dining establishments?