Monday, December 29, 2008

BOB VEO

I got to drive MY car for the first time in months today and it was awesome! That's all for now...

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Last night's dinner

I had a bit of false confidence in my cooking abilities after making some bomb-ass pumpkin bread for BA's holiday potluck. Then, something as easy as pancakes cut me right back down to size...

Monday, December 15, 2008

Hello....NEWMAN!

My friend's cat, Newman, is in a "cutest holiday cat" contest on the Seattle PI's site. Go to this page and vote for the cat pictured below!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast...

It's December 10th at 6:26 p.m. and the current temperature outside is 68°. Just thought I'd share...

Sunday, December 7, 2008

The best idea I've ever had

I was eating Cap'n Crunch for dinner tonight when I had an epiphany. Why in the world don't they make Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch WITH CRUNCH BERRIES?!? I quickly called Cheryl to tell her idea. She has a history of inventing awesome foods—the next time you're eating chocolate cookies with vanilla frosting or vanilla cookies with chocolate frosting, keep in mind that Nabisco stole that idea from an adorable eight-year old with pigtails and dimples. They taste a little bitter after that. Cheryl prodded me to make this dream come true, so I went to the store and bought a box of each cereal.

When I got home, I dumped all the Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries into a big bowl and began to sort out the Crunch Berries from the golden, mouth-shredding pillows.



Then, I poured the Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch and the Crunch Berries into the empty Cap'n Crunch box, mixing them with my pouring.



So, $4 and 20 minutes later...VOILA!...peanut butter & jelly cereal, bitches! Honestly, it was better than I could have even imagined. This needs to be mass produced ASAP! Now, if I could only get Safeway to bring back their red licorice soda...

Bull Durham & soul food

First, I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that while I was driving around Durham, I came across the old baseball stadium where the Bulls used to play and where Bull Durham was filmed. Not much to look at now, as it's under construction. It's going to be used as an amateur baseball training complex and as the home field for the North Carolina Central University Eagles. That didn't stop me from taking a picture though...



Next, a buddy and I went to Mama Dip's for lunch today to cross off one of the restaurants on my list. He's new to the area as well, but has already been there multiple times. There was a 15 minute wait to get a table, but it was well worth it—the food was phenomenal! We started off with some sweet potato biscuits and then I ordered the chicken & dumplings, with sides of collard greens and yams. Of course I washed it all down with some sweet tea. I'll definitely be heading back there again before my time here is up.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

I cleaned my kitchen for nothing...

In an interesting turn of events, it looks like I might not be getting a new roommate after all. We'll see...

It was a fun day today. I did wake up at 7:30 to be awake when the potential new roommate got here to sign his lease and get his key (which didn't happen. He showed up, but didn't have money for first month's rent, which is obviously a problem). After that I went toodling around Durham. There was a particular store that I wanted to check out to possibly do a little Christmas shopping, but upon arriving, I learned that they don't open until 11. Slackers. So I headed back home to pick up shoes I had to return at Nordstrom. Remember those black and neon green Asics I got in October? Turned out they are, by far, the most uncomfortable shoes I've ever worn. They actually rubbed the skin off of my Achilles' tendon. On top of that, they're too narrow, so my jeans were constantly slipping underneath them as I walked and they were incredibly heavy little shoes. Good riddance! I was bummed, however, when I showed up at Nordstrom and the guy that took care of me last time was there again this time. He was a big douche and basically called me a liar when I told them I only wore them twice, but whatev...I walked out with new shoes that should be a lot better. I've been looking for new brown shoes for a long time and found these Clarks that I like a lot. While I still would like to get a dressier pair of brown shoes, these are nice in that they look good with jeans and can probably still be pulled off with a pair of slacks. They're light, comfortable and I would call them Seattle-style casual office shoes. See for yourself...



After that, I was driving around, killing time before 11. I saw some signs for a "multi-family indoor yard sale" that I decided to follow. They led me to a random warehouse and it turned out to be some sort of fundraiser for a local Christian Academy. I walked in and there were six little tables that were absolutely dwarfed in this gigantic warehouse. The first table was manned by a mid-20s thuggish guy that had a bunch of clothes, two DVDs and a paintball gun on display. As I approached his table, he said, "Hey, ever seen one of these?" as he pulled out this strange, cylindrical handheld contraption from his pocket. Before I could say no, he was unfolding blades and it was a four-bladed knife that's only purpose would be for a little no-nonsense stabbing. Playing dumb, I asked, "What is that for?" to which he replied, "It's for protection! I just carry it around to make sure nobody messes with me!" Needless to say, I passed on the protection device and also passed on stiletto flip flops, Jesus hats and cheetah-print, furry candle holders.



While searching for a picture of that, I came across this — which is just insane.

I finally headed back over to the store that opened at 11, but couldn't find what I was looking for. After that, I met up with a buddy from work to play some disc golf. I really suck at throwing frisbees and it was nearly as frustrating as real golf. But we had a great time and agreed to play again sometime. After that we had some Thai food at a place called Twisted Noodles and it was excellent. After that, I came home, took a nap and I've just been chillin' tonight. Good times!

Friday, December 5, 2008

This 'n That

Work Update
Work has been really awesome lately. I've been super busy the last two days, calling every MLB front office to pass along information about Baseball America's ninth-annual Awards Gala that will take place during the Winter Meetings next week. On top of that, I've been doing a lot of research for a college insert that will be in the next issue and I have two articles in the double issue coming out soon with Nick Adenhart on the cover. Here's a link to one of them about baseball trying to get back into the 2016 Olympics. I got to talk to Curtis Granderson for that one, which was sweet. I also played a great prank at work today that was talked about all day and I made plans to go disc golfing with a co-worker on Saturday and plans to hit up Mama Dip's with another co-worker on Sunday, so the weekend should be good too!

Goodbye
Goodbye walking around naked.
Goodbye leaving clothes in the dryer.
Goodbye neglecting the dishes until I'm eating cereal out of Tupperware.
Goodbye blasting music at 3 in the morning.
Goodbye crapping with the door open.
Goodbye always choosing what to watch on TV and having the best seat.
I'm getting a new roommate in five hours.

Clark Griswold would be ashamed...
My street is pretty festive. Of the 25 or so houses on my street, I would say that 10-12 have Christmas lights up and they look nice. There's one house, however, that really should have spent a little more time with their Christmas lights. This photo doesn't really do it justice, but I think an apt analogy would be, Conor : wrapping Christmas presents :: these people : putting up Christmas lights. See for yourself...



Los Campesinos!
The other day I was watching TV and saw an ad for eMusic that offered 35 free, no-strings-attached downloads. So, I checked it out and, on a whim, took a chance on a band called Los Campesinos! Despite the Spanish name (which apparently translates into The Farmers or The Peasants), they're a seven-piece indie-pop band from Wales. The album is pure gold and I'm in love with it. I just got it late Wednesday night and I've already listened to it about seven times. I found out they'll be playing here in January and I'm pumped. Here's a YouTube clip (just audio), if you want to hear for yourself. Enjoy!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Shelby & Twitch

I'm taking care of a co-worker's pets for the weekend. He and his girlfriend have a rabbit named Twitch and a little box turtle named Shelby. Twitch is easy. All I have to do is shake the poop of of his/her towel, fill up the food dish, put in a handful of hay and feed it a yogurt treat. It's really cute and really soft, but also really fast and Ali told me, "Don't let it out because you'll have a really hard time trying to catch it." While I know that would make for a great blog entry, I'm not risking it...



Shelby, on the other hand, is a little more difficult. I have to make sure its dirt is all even and then spray water all throughout the tank to maintain a damp atmosphere. Also, I think it's a baby turtle because it's really small and I have to...get this...hand feed it earthworms. Not even full earth worms, either. I have to chop an earthworm into thirds and hold the little pieces in front of Shelby's face until it feels like eating. You better like this picture because I think I got worm blood on my phone...

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I like food

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving was great. As I mentioned before, I headed out to Winston-Salem to spend the day with my buddy Dave and his wife's family. It was so nice of them to have me out and they welcomed me in like an old family friend. Dave said I couldn't bring any food, so I brought some flowers instead. The funny thing is that if we ate the flowers, they'd probably taste better than any food I could have made. I made great time on the way out there, arriving a little after 2. We just hung out for a bit, talking and watching some football before dinner was ready a little after three. All in all, there were 10 of us at the table—Dave and his wife Amy, her parents, her sister, her brother, his wife, two kids and me. The food was great. Pretty traditional Thanksgiving fare—turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, orange rolls, green bean casserole, cranberries, pistachio Jell-O salad and homemade apple sauce. However, there were two more southern things that were served: corn pudding and sweet potato casserole. Everything was delicious! For dessert, I had some pumpkin chocolate chip cake with ice cream and then we played some games. It was a great time.

Restaurant checklist
Last night I started flipping through the guide to Durham Cheryl and I picked up when we first got here. I hadn't really looked at it since that first week, but I decided I would try and find a few new restaurants to check out before I leave. Mostly, I found more barbecue places I want to try to see how they match up against The Q Shack & Arthur Bryant's. Here's my checklist...

• Bullock's
Dillard's
Hog Heaven
• The Barbecue Joint

Although I may be adding more to that list now that I found this Web site!

The Barbecue Joint wasn't in the book, because it's actually in Chapel Hill. I found out about that place on Google, because apparently Rachel Ray went there when she came to the Triangle for an episode of $40 A Day. Another place she went to was a traditional southern restaurant called Mama Dip's. I'm very excited about going there and I have a feeling that some chicken and dumplings might be in store for me this weekend. I might even try some chitlins too, we'll see...

Man Vs. Food
This is a new show on the Travel Channel that I found tonight and became an immediate fan. The host, Adam Richman, is funny without being annoying as he visits cities to pig out at their best greasy spoons. He visits a few different restaurants and ends the show by taking on an eating challenge. In Texas, for example, he ate a 72 oz. steak in a half hour and in Memphis he tried to eat an eight-pound burger. I wish I could get paid to eat!

Let's wrap this up with some awesome live footage of one of my favorite bands, The Descendents, and their song, "I Like Food." Enjoy!