Monday, March 29, 2010

prodigal stun

What once was lost has now been found! Four months after I lost my digital camera, it has found its way back to me.

On the day after Thanksgiving, my kids and I purchased a new washer and dryer as a Christmas gift for my wife. They posed for pictures with the floor models of the appliances. Our plan was to give my wife the photos on Christmas day, since the machines wouldn't be delivered until the next day. That never happened because I lost the camera somewhere at the mall, probably in the parking lot.

This past week, I received the following message from a college student named Alayna. She used Facebook to look me up.
Over the Christmas holidays I found an Olympus camera in the West Town Mall parking lot. Once going through the pictures to try to find out whose it might be, I found there were many pictures of you and Alan Williams from channel 8 on it. If it is yours or you think you might know whose it is, please reply.
The photo of Alan Williams that Alayna saw was from the Signature Chefs Auction on November 8. She didn't mention the picture of Kristin Farley that was next on the memory card.



Obviously, I wrote back to Alayna and added her as a friend. Her busy schedule made it hard to arrange a meeting. However her parents lived reasonably close to the location of a remote broadcast I had on Friday afternoon. They arrived with the camera and told me the rest of the story. Surprisingly, I have "Fish Bait" to thank.

Like mine, their family went to the mall on Black Friday. Alayna saw my camera in the parking lot and picked it up. It must have wanted to be lost, because it promptly disappeared somewhere in her car. She was cleaning the vehicle recently and found the camera again. Fortunately, it still had enough battery life left for Alayna and her father to look at the photos and do some research.
As far as the detective work, I have to give the credit for actually figuring out that it was yours to him. I had looked through the pictures a few times to see if maybe I could figure it out from that. I recognized Allan Williams but with my busy schedule didn't have time to really figure out how to get in contact with him. Then last weekend, I was at home and up late working on a school project. My dad got hungry and we started talking about the camera. He started going through it again and found the picture of the film you were in, noticed you in it, Googled the film and found your picture. Then I just Facebooked you to see if it was you and as they say, the rest is history. Ha-ha! I wonder if it wasn't for the movie, if we would have ever figured it out. Glad you got it back. :)
Alayna's dad said it was these two pictures from the "Fish Bait" premiere that gave him the clues he needed. Now I have to figure out how to return the $27 in donations that I received for a replacement camera.

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Sunday, March 28, 2010

shell games

The torrential rain today meant that my wife and I had to suggest an indoor activity for our house-guests. My wife's sister and four of her kids are here on their spring break. We drove to tourist-friendly Sevier County and were slightly delayed by the last participant in the Knoxville Marathon. One of the cops who stopped traffic confirmed to me that I was watching the final runner cross Henley Street.

Three and a half years ago, my wife and I enjoyed a visit to RainForest Adventures. We thought her young nephews would want to go there too. They liked it, almost as much as I did. Because I'm a fan of tortoises, I tried looking eye-to-eye at one through the glass. Another glanced up at me from the middle of a huddle.

Another visitor bought pellets to feed some Australian pygmy goats. I saw two flightless birds out in the rain but didn't notice their egg until I got home and viewed the photos.

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Saturday, March 20, 2010

sweet seventeenth

No matter how late or how early Easter is each year, my wife's birthday always falls during Lent. As a result, we plan our Lenten sacrifices to exclude a sweet treat on her special day. This year's celebration was delayed because she's had a cold. We went out to dinner tonight and then someplace else to get dessert.

My Facebook and Twitter feeds had several posts about free Italian ice today at all Rita's Ice locations. Apparently it's a first day of spring tradition at the Philadelphia-based chain. This year, they have teamed up with another famous Pennsylvania company to create a special flavor that I had to experience for myself. I talked my wife into going to Rita's on Market Square tonight.

The store was crowded when we arrived. My wife wisely chose the sugar-free tangerine flavor while I took a cup of the new Peeps Ice. I expected it to be very sweet since the real Peeps are not just marshmallows but sugar-coated marshmallows. Unfortunately they added a vanilla flavoring that didn't work for me. It was as if I suddenly understood all the negative things people have said to me over the years about my love of Marshmallow Peeps.

The ice was sickeningly sweet. I don't believe it to be an accurate representation of a standard Peep, which I still crave. Maybe they were trying to make it more like the vanilla-crème flavored marshmallows that they sell for Valentine's Day, which I don't enjoy.

Rita's still has plenty of good flavors. Peeps Ice just isn't one of them. Next Saturday they will give away chocolate-covered Peeps at Rita's. I had one of those in January and loved it.

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Sunday, March 14, 2010

mad magazine

The big news at All Saints Church this morning was that Fr. Tony Dickerson has asked Bishop Stika for a leave of absence from the priesthood. We were all asked to pray for Tony, who is a favorite of my family. It's got to be a tough job. There are many former priests out there including one of my mother's relatives. Fr. Tony got a big laugh a couple of months ago when he told the congregation at 8:15 a.m. Mass that he suspected they liked to go to church early so they can beat the Baptists to Cracker Barrel.

Bishop Stika has been in my thoughts for two other reasons this past week. In the newest edition of the East Tennessee Catholic, the Bishop responds to some hateful anti-Catholic propaganda that was recently distributed in Pigeon Forge. The story hit the local news just before my wife and I headed out of town, coincidentally to the Bishop's hometown of St. Louis. Because of our travels, we didn't realize that it made the national news too.

The ridiculous pamphlets falsely allege that Catholics are not Christians and that our belief in the Holy Eucharist was stolen from ancient Egyptian sun worshipers. I wonder if the author has ever driven past a Catholic church, much less opened a book to do any research about it. I found a great blog post written by a priest who is a convert to Catholicism. He quotes Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen who said there are very few people who disagree with what Catholics believe, but there are millions who disagree with what they think Catholics believe. I was reminded of my late grandfather who used to question what it was that modern-day Protestants were protesting.

The last bit of Bishop Stika news to cross my desk last week involves me more directly. The annual Catholic Charities dinner is this Thursday. I was invited to auction off dinner for ten with Bishop Stika at The Chop House. Given my experience, I hope I can get away with a joke or two about fasting and abstinence during Lent.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

when pigs fly



One of the best things about Nashville International Airport is the live music that you may encounter as you walk to your gate. I saw a sign for a "melody guy" that confused me because the singer was obviously a woman. It turns out that her name is Melody Guy.

I was at the airport to drop off my son, who is on his Spring break from college. Normally I would let him out of the car in the white zone, which is for loading and unloading only, and drive off. However this time he was traveling with some high-priced bacon. We were almost 100% sure that TSA would have no problem with the breakfast meat but we devised a back-up plan just in case. I would wait by the x-ray machines, ready to accept the pork if the officers rejected it. It all turned out fine and my son and his friends will be enjoying Benton's bacon for breakfast during his visit.

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Tuesday, March 09, 2010

sir francis bacon


An unassuming building along the side of the road has a direct link to some of the finest restaurants in the country. Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams is arguably more famous for their bacon than for their hams.


A recent issue of Metro Pulse inspired me to plan a field trip to Benton's with my bacon-loving son. They had articles about a hipster event called Baconfest founded by an ex-vegetarian. Meat-master Allan Benton was there when we arrived at the shop in Madisonville. His gracious and helpful employees showed us around and answered all the questions we had.


The raw hams and pork bellies arrive from Kansas City in big cardboard crates. The staff rubs them with salt on the curing table and allows them to age. They eventually get hung on racks and sent to the smoker.


My son and I bought some bacon to have for dinner that night and some for him to take back to school. On the way home, we picked up a head of lettuce, a tomato and some soft kaiser rolls at the supermarket. I fried some bacon and baked some, according to directions I found online. We preferred the bacon that was cooked at 400° on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. The first recipe called for nine minutes on each side but it did not need that much time, as posted elsewhere. It was the best BLT ever.

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Monday, March 08, 2010

archie's place

They say that New Yorkers don't visit the Statue of Liberty. I never have, even though I grew up in the nearby suburbs. I try not to repeat that mistake when traveling, which is why I'm surprised it has taken me this long to make it to the top of the Gateway Arch. The Arch is the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis.



On our 3,000 mile road trip in the summer of 2007, my family had the bad luck of visiting the Arch two days after a power outage caused all sorts of havoc. I got some nice pictures from the base, but did not ascend. We thought about going to the Arch in January, but it was completely engulfed in fog.



This past weekend, my wife and I made a quick trip through St. Louis after picking up our son at college. We had enough time on Saturday to go up in the Arch and to see the excellent (although dated) movie, "Monument to the Dream." I just put the DVD on my wish list.



The documentary shows how the landmark was constructed in the early '60s. It made me wish I could go back and see television news coverage from the raising of the last piece on October 28, 1965. I did find a good YouTube video with some pre-Arch history. A model outside the theater shows the last piece being raised into place.



The land below the Arch looks like a quiet, grassy park. It conceals an underground complex with two theaters, gift shops, a museum and more. The Museum of Westward Expansion featured lots of information about the Louisiana Purchase and an interesting smaller exhibit about baseball teams moving and expanding to the West. The warning not to touch the taxidermied animals amused me. Apparently not everyone knows that dead bison grow no hair.



The view out the city side of the Arch was more interesting than the view out the river side. Looking toward the north I could see the Edward Jones Dome. Looking toward the south I could see Busch Stadium. I really want to attend a Cardinals game there some day.



Because our plan was to leave early enough on Sunday to get home to watch the Oscars (we made it with minutes to spare), we wanted to go to a vigil Mass on Saturday night. St. Louis has a plethora of Catholic parishes and we hadn't decided which one to visit. I even asked my friend Fr. Ragan Schriver for suggestions. Once we had seen the movie and looked at the Museum of Westward Expansion, it was after 5:00 p.m. and we didn't have time to get to either of the churches Fr. Ragan had mentioned. I was collecting some brochures from the ranger at the information desk when I realized the answer was on a flyer in my hands. In fact, two hours earlier, I had photographed The Old Cathedral from 630 feet up. We could easily walk there in time for the 5:30 Mass.

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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

stealers wheel

The preseason hype for the very funny "Modern Family" got me to create season passes for ABC's Wednesday comedy lineup but it is "The Middle" that has won me over. I'm not taking anything away from "Modern Family." It's got a great combination of clever dialogue, outrageous characters and uncomfortable Phil moments. I just find "The Middle" to be more relatable.

Sometimes it's as if the writers of "The Middle" have a hidden camera trained on my family. They had a Christmas episode about the mom's solo with the church choir that hit close to home. As my wife and I were watching "American Idol," I got a text message from my daughter that said, "make sure Mom watches 'The Middle' tonight!" I was recording both shows, so I paused "Idol" and switched to "The Middle."

For the first ten minutes or so, we wondered what had prompted my daughter's text message. The episode seemed to center on Brick's participation in a spelling bee and Sue's overlooked birthday. Once the Hecks began their road trip to Chicago, we knew.

A few years ago, at a big birthday party for my mother-in-law, my wife got our kids and all their cousins to sing the same song that the Hecks sang in tonight's show. It's something about an Austrian going yodeling. That wasn't all. Their side trip to the World's Largest Oak Tree Stump was slightly reminiscent of my family's side trip to the World's Largest Ball of Twine. I suspect that the writers based the oak stump on the World's Largest Sycamore Stump in Kokomo.



I wrongly assumed that people who missed the show tonight could watch it online tomorrow. A message at Fancast.com says that full episodes are unavailable. The best I could find is a one-minute scene about the tree stump.

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Sunday, February 28, 2010

come along, kiddie-winkies

Before the Oscars each year, my wife and I try to see as many of the nominated films as we can. Some years we see a lot, some years hardly any. We haven't made it to very many this year. Of the best three movies I saw in 2009, only two were nominated for best picture. I liked "Up," "The Blind Side" and "Star Trek." I'm not the only person who thinks "Star Trek" was robbed of a nomination, especially since the category was unnecessarily inflated to ten films. I thought "Julie & Julia" and "District 9" were good but not better than "Star Trek."

Last Sunday, we went to see "The Lovely Bones." Supporting actor nominee Stanley Tucci was beyond creepy as the perverted serial killer. However the movie itself is not good. As I wrote on Twitter, it would have been better with a little less "Lovely" and a little more "Bones" or "CSI" for that matter. The CGI sequences of the girl stuck between heaven and earth drag on and make the movie seem way longer than it is.

We intended to go to the movies again today. We checked Fandango and found that the films we most wanted to see had already left the theaters. It occurred to us that it would be cheaper to stay home and check the On Demand menu for an HD movie. Although I get a discount on my Comcast subscription, new movies like "Inglourious Basterds" cost me $5.99, same as anybody else. It was worth it. We would have spent more than that at the concession stand alone.

I don't get why Christoph Waltz is nominated for best supporting actor instead of lead actor. His character, Hans Landa, is central to the entire movie. He is the connecting link between the multiple story lines and gets plenty of screen time. They must have thought he couldn't beat the best actor nominees, which is a shame. Landa reminded me of a scary character from my youth. His evil ways had some similarity to the Child Catcher in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

48 farthings

More free coffee found its way into my world over the weekend. After I had brewed a pot with a sample packet of Folgers that I had picked up along the way, my wife's brother went out to his car and got the remnants of a bag of Allegro Coffee that he had purchased in Northern Virginia. The blend was labeled "extra darker," which means it's super special, right?



As I scooped the grounds into the filter, he suggested that I sprinkle some cinnamon on top of the coffee before brewing. It tasted good but I didn't have anything with which to compare it. He let me keep what was left in the bag. Tonight I brewed a little more of the Allegro to have with dinner. However, I still didn't experience the pure taste of "extra darker." Because it was Fat Tuesday, it was my last chance before Lent to use a chocolate-covered spoon that my wife had received for Christmas.

None of us noticed it on Sunday morning, but as I look at the photo now, I realize that my jar of Schilling Cinnamon is at least seven years old. My wife thinks we might have bought it in Burbank.

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Monday, February 15, 2010

horse and carriage

The celebration of World Marriage Day at All Saints Church is a good deal. If a couple will mark a significant anniversary (1, 5, 10, 15, etc.) during the year, they are invited to a nice, sit-down dinner in the parish hall. My wife and I like it so much that we volunteer to be servers on the four years between our 0s and 5s. This year's event was held on Friday night.

The evening starts in the church with a blessing from the pastor. Fr. Michael Woods likes to ask the couples where they met. My wife and I got a few chuckles when we described our meeting in a night club called the Wax Museum under the figure of Neil Armstrong.

Photo proofs from this year's dinner are now online at Boppspot.com. The cakes shown in the first few shots were made by our friend Chris Kite. My wife and I were fortunate to end up sitting at the same table as Dr. Kelly Kearse and his wife Kathy. Dr. Kearse was my son's high school chemistry teacher and helped inspire his love of science. Before the night was through, I talked a little politics with Gary Loe, who has announced his candidacy for the state House seat being vacated by the headline-grabbing Stacey Campfield.

One of the couples in attendance will celebrate their 70th anniversary in 2010. Fr. Michael had them cut the cake and got the husband to sing a little bit of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." When it was time to get the dancing started, a Glenn Miller song came on and Fr. Michael grabbed my wife's hand and spun her around the floor a few times. Later, she and I danced some and tried to teach others the proper hand motions for "YMCA."

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

don't lose your head

It's important to back up your words with actions. That's why my wife and I did our part to support the transition of Taylor Swift from singer to actress. We braved the crowds at the Regal West Town Mall 9 to see "Valentine's Day" on Valentine's Day. It turns out that a lot of the people who were there came to watch the Daytona 500 on a theater screen while enjoying pizza and beer.

The movie wasn't as bad as I feared. I had heard that it was basically a two-hour "Love Boat" episode. It finished stronger than it started, which will help generate positive word-of-mouth. The biggest disappointment was the story line involving Julia Roberts. I felt like something got edited out, such as a plausible explanation for her quick trip to Los Angeles. I expected her to at least be on her way to a wedding or funeral. My favorite story threads were those with Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel and yes, Taylor Swift.

When the movie let out, we walked through the mall in search of a kiosk offering free samples of jAVERDE flavored coffee. My friend Lissa has suggested several times that I try it. Of the four I tasted, Shell Shock was the best. The clerk told me that they plan to open a store across from Food City on Middlebrook Pike in a space vacated by Bear Creek Coffee.

What's Valentine's Day without chocolate? Earlier in the day, my wife surprised me with a heart-shaped box of hand-dipped truffles that she bought from Belle's Sweet Boutique. The proprietor, Ann Douglas, is an acquaintance of hers. The candies are truffle-licious.

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Friday, February 12, 2010

three quarter time

The memory chip in the camera I borrowed had a few stray pictures on it that I needed to clear off before going to a dinner dance at church tonight. This one is from a road trip to Northern Virginia at the beginning of January.

My family and I had stopped at a Quarles convenience store in Front Royal, Virginia. I spotted an offer that seemed too good to pass up. Anything with Oreo in its name will catch my eye and the Oreo Brownie was no exception. The counter display had a pad of 75¢ coupons on it. I asked the clerk how much the brownie cost. It was $1 before the coupon, meaning I could get one for 25¢. I have long thought that most snack cakes are overpriced. It's rare to see a coupon worth more than half the price of an item.



I told my son that I would pay the quarter and he could have the free part. We put the treat in a bag in the car and forgot about it for the time being. A few days later when we were back home, my son found the brownie and cut it into two pieces. I knew without looking that my piece would be exactly 25% of the total mass because that's how he is.

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

put down your weapon

On the show "24," Jack Bauer has a reputation for beating confessions out of people. I am unbloodied and unbruised but I have a confession for Mr. Bauer nevertheless. I've been watching your show and enjoying it... from 2009.

As my DVR automatically started recording the new season 8 of "24," I began feeling bad that I hadn't seen season 7. Like many shows, I was saving the episodes to watch together with my wife. Our son viewed the whole season online while at college and raved about how good it was. Last week, after I had gotten caught up on some recent episodes of "Fringe," my wife gave me the go-ahead to watch and delete season 7 of "24" without her.

If I were doing a marathon viewing of "24" on DVD, it would be no big deal. Why does keeping it on a DVR for a year seem weird? Could it be the commercials and promos? In one of the first few episodes, I saw a news tease about the Pope's appointment of Bishop Stika.

I've also seen a lot of promos for the debut of season 8 of "American Idol." They show face after face of contestants headed to Hollywood. I recognized none of them. So far I haven't seen anyone who remotely resembles Adam Lambert or Kris Allen or Danny Gokey or Anoop Desai. It makes me think that the televised audition process is truly a waste of time. They may as well start the show with Hollywood week.

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

cracker hack

The very addicting cracker candy that my wife made for Christmas was supposed to last until our son went back to school. The plan was for him to take some to share with his roommates. Yeah, right. Instead, my wife and I made another batch to send him as a care package along with the necktie he left at home.

Normally, cracker candy is made with Saltines. Because we like chocolate-covered pretzels, we substituted Flipsides and used dark chocolate chips. Upgrade! Here's the recipe for those of you playing along at home.
  • Preheat oven to 425°
  • Arrange crackers in a bricklayer design on a cookie sheet covered with parchment. (We used two disposable aluminum pans.)
  • Melt two sticks of butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add ¾ cup sugar and stir constantly. Bring mixture to a boil for three minutes.
  • Pour hot mixture over crackers and spread evenly with spoon. Bake at 425° for five minutes.
  • Sprinkle chocolate chips over toffee. As they melt spread chocolate evenly with a spoon
  • Top with chopped pecans or almonds (I used broken pretzel pieces!)
  • Cover with foil and chill until hardened. Break into bite-size pieces, dropping the pan on the floor if you have to. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and mail them to college as fast as possible before they "accidentally" get eaten at home.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

laugh factory

On the trip to bring him back to school, one of the many things my son and I talked about was my blog entry about "Ed Gein: The Musical." I was pleased that the film's producers had seen my post and left a comment. They liked my idea for a parody song called "You: Suede Shoes."

I explained to my son that I didn't feel particularly funny when I was writing that post. Most of it was fairly standard but I thought it needed some jokes to close it out. Since comedy comes in threes, all I had to do was make up three quick punchlines. To do so, I used a comedy technique that I call "one from column A and one from column B."

In this case, column A would be a list of easily recognizable Elvis songs. I've been to Graceland and worked at an oldies station, so I knew plenty. If I didn't, a list is only a click away at Wikipedia. Column B would be anything Gein-related, like body parts or heinous crimes. Then it's just a matter of finding matches.

I suspect that certain movie companies in the San Fernando Valley use the same basic concept to name their movies. Last month, I used it to make up a bunch of "Avatar" jokes on Twitter.

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Sunday, January 24, 2010

jumping through hoops

The news that Hulu wants to eventually charge a fee for access to some videos is irritating to me. Lately many Internet content providers have balked about putting their stuff online for free. The New York Times is another one. Newspapers are used to selling their daily print editions. I'm a believer in advertiser-supported media which has, for the most part, been successful since 1922.

Companies like Hulu and the Times seem ready to overlook the fact that average Joes like you and me already pay a monthly fee for Internet access in our homes. I have never thought of the Internet as free. Yes, I can occasionally go to the library or to Panera Bread but I can't imagine being without the Internet in my home.

Of course when I'm at home is when I least need Hulu. I have access to On Demand programming and whatever is on my DVRs. However it is still a convenient backup for anything I might have otherwise missed. My son watches most of his TV online while he is at college. Perhaps he represents the audience that Hulu is trying to soak for cash.

In the current flight of endorsement commercials that I am doing for Comcast High Speed Internet, I talk about Fancast Xfinity TV. It gives me access to full-length movies and television shows online. The software can be installed on up to three computers, which means my son can use it at school and I can use it anywhere I can go online with my laptop.

Fancast and ESPN360 are included in my Comcast subscription. I much prefer that economic model to Hulu and other sites trying to nickel and dime me. If they knew anything about me, they would know I won't pay.

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Friday, January 22, 2010

las nueve manos del pulpo

Before my daughter mailed my Discover Card back to me, I asked her to disguise it. She took the idea to heart and created the character of Julio.



Patricia, one of my Facebook friends and business contacts, saw the post and sent me the following message:
I loved reading "think they got your number." My freshman daughter had also borrowed my credit card while home for the holidays. She inadvertently took it back to college with her. The day you wrote it, I sent the link to my daughter. I received the credit card yesterday inside this greeting card! I laughed so hard! Thought I would share...

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Monday, January 18, 2010

buon appetito

Two St. Louis foodie experiences got checked off our to-do list this weekend. My wife, our son and I went to the trendy π to try their deep-dish pizza with cornmeal crust. Fortunately it lived up to the hype. I enjoyed my Bada Bing salad too.

Even better was our trip to the Italian neighborhood known as The Hill. I had found a low-cost place called Amighetti's in the AAA TourBook. It wasn't until we got there that we realized it is a sandwich place that was just about to close at 5:30 p.m. I was looking for a place where we could sit down for dinner. While she would have been happy to serve us, the clerk suggested a restaurant a few blocks away, which turned out to be a great idea.

The dining room at Rigazzi's was packed. We were told to expect a 45-minute wait. Some potential patrons started giving up and going to other nearby restaurants. As a result, our wait was shortened to about 15 minutes.

We were sitting close enough to the people at the next table that we could easily converse with them. They mentioned the large portion sizes of all the menu items, which affirmed my decision to split an entree with my wife. We chose the Chicken Romanoff, which had an amazing sauce with pancetta pieces and bleu cheese crumbles.

Our waiter was extremely apologetic that our salads arrived moments after our meals. He offered to bring us a free dessert. Since we were celebrating my son's birthday, I accepted. The waiter went over the top, bringing us four desserts: tiramisu, regular cheesecake and two pieces of chocolate cheesecake. We took two of the cheesecake slices back to Aunt Dee's and saved them for the next day.

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Friday, January 15, 2010

tuna helper

"Why does this always happen to me?" was the question I posed to my son as we left the grocery store this afternoon. Once again, I had challenged the scanned price of an item and been proven correct by the tag on the shelf. I was also referring to the discontinuation of another product I liked.

When StarKist reduced the size of their tuna cans from 6 ounces to 4½, I stopped buying them. I briefly switched to Bumble Bee until they reduced their can size too. I was happy to discover Crown Prince Natural in 6 ounce cans. Their cost per ounce was less than StarKist.

Food City usually sold Crown Prince Natural Albacore Tuna for $2.45 a can. Today I saw a shelf tag I simultaneously love and dread. It said, "Clearance Item: $1.23." I put all the cans marked "no salt added" into my cart. At that price, I also chose two cans of the regular tuna, figuring that I could occasionally handle the extra 75mg of sodium.

At the checkout, some of the cans scanned at $1.23 but some scanned at $2.45. I held up the line and caused other shoppers to go to another cashier while the store manager went to check the shelf price. It required some override codes on the manager's part but I eventually got my tuna at the lower price. Now I'm in the market for a new tuna supplier while being careful not to break off the pull tab of my remaining cans.

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

ya hear about this?

All the attention being paid to NBC's mismanagement makes it seem like their late night shows are the only ones that matter. Yes, "The Tonight Show" is a storied franchise and without it, none of the other shows would exist. However, if I were to rank the various talk shows on after 10:00 p.m., NBC's entries would be at the bottom of the list.

Jay Leno
has no business returning to 11:35. If NBC wanted him to stay there, they shouldn't have promised the time slot to Conan O'Brien. I do like Conan's statement in which he refused to participate in the destruction of "Tonight" by moving it to "tomorrow." I hope his future success makes NBC regret the way they are treating him now.

The real winners in the latest late night controversy should be Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman and Craig Ferguson. All three of them do a better show than Leno, O'Brien or Jimmy Fallon.

It's no secret that I would choose to be on "Team Kimmel." His show has had a season pass on my DVR since day one. This afternoon my son and I couldn't stop laughing as we watched Jimmy's show from last night. He did the whole hour made up to look like Jay Leno. It was reminiscent of his appearance as Jay on the reenactment of the Michael Jackson trial.

My favorite part was the way they mocked the lame musical notes that Kevin Eubanks plays after each of the real Leno's jokes. At dinner tonight, my wife said she wished she had seen it. Because I had already deleted the program from the DVR, she will have to watch the whole episode via Fancast.com or she can catch the highlights on YouTube.

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

roid rage

Now that Mark McGwire has admitted what was as plain as the neck on his face, what do I do with this?



By the way, I heard a reasonable defense of McGwire by Chris Core on my fancy new WiFi radio today.

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Monday, January 11, 2010

jailhouse rock

Not everyone has a wife as understanding as mine. I briefly mentioned that one of the Christmas gifts she gave me was a book about killers called "Human Monsters" by David Everitt. One of the six evildoers whose pictures were chosen for the cover was Ed Gein, who is credited as being the inspiration for the character of Norman Bates in "Psycho." Each nutjob gets about two or three pages in the book. The brief chapter on Gein alludes to the psychological damage inflicted on him by his mother. However Gein's crimes were more reminiscent of Jame Gumb in "Silence of the Lambs."

As I write this, my wife is at a Knoxville Choral Society rehearsal. She also sings with the choir at All Saints Church. In high school, she played Laurey in the student production of "Oklahoma!" I bring up her interest in music because of a news story out of Menasha, Wisconsin. The small town was the location of the debut screenings of "Ed Gein: The Musical." According to the follow-up article, the songs are parodies of well-known tunes. For example, "All Cooked Up" is a spoof of "All Shook Up."

I wonder if there are some Elvis songs they could use in a sequel. It would be great to hear "Love Me Tenderized," "Good Luck Arm" and "You: Suede Shoes."

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Sunday, January 10, 2010

think they got your number

The two people in the world who can make me laugh consistently, who have a direct line to my funny bone, are my son and daughter. Having them both here over Christmas break was pure joy.

Just before our summer vacation, my wife told me to start using my Discover Card to buy gasoline because they were having some kind of cash back reward. I kept on using it because I never bothered asking when the promotion would end.

Over New Year's weekend, we made a quick trip to Virginia. My daughter needed to get back to work after spending a week in Tennessee. During one refueling stop, I asked her to use my card to pay for the gas while I went to the rest room. I forgot to get it back.

She found it in her pocket a few days later and notified me via text message. I called her and asked her to mail it to me at her convenience. I also asked her to disguise the item so it wouldn't look or feel like a credit card through the envelope. She stuffed it inside one of those neoprene can koozies but not before adding a couple of extras:

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Friday, January 08, 2010

nominee for best Grammy alternative

One of the NFC playoff games this weekend has made me feel conflicted. I come from a family of New York Football Giants fans. I got more interested in football after moving to the D.C. area and meeting several of the Washington Redskins. I married into a family of Redskins fan and before long, I had converted.

When the dreaded Dallas Cowboys play the despised Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday night, I will be hoping that somehow they will both lose and both be eliminated from the postseason. Obviously that can't happen and one team will survive to play again on the 16th or 17th. So I am faced with a question: which team do I hate more? As a Redskins fan, I should say the Cowboys. Yet my roots have stirred a deeper dislike for the stinking Eagles.

The weeks leading up to the Super Bowl are usually more fun than the big game itself. I will try to watch as much of the four games this weekend and next as I can. The conference championship games on January 24th are must-see TV for me. This year, the league has finally done something to alleviate the boredom of the Sunday following the championship round.

Instead of having no football to watch a week before the Super Bowl, the NFL decided to try playing the Pro Bowl that day. This is something I have been hoping for since 2006. My son and wife both said, "what about the players in the Super Bowl?" My response is "who needs them?" In past years many of the Super Bowl players skip the Pro Bowl anyway. Others only play for one or two series of downs. Excusing those few players from the Pro Bowl will have no major effect on my enjoyment of the game. I hope the experiment works.

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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

but wait, there's more

The goal I set for myself last night was to figure out how to get WINC and WVMP on my new WiFi clock radio. I located both their streams online and added them to "My Streams" at Reciva.com. Just before climbing into bed this afternoon for my nap, I saw that a new menu item had been added to my radio but neither station connected. I will keep trying.

The good news is that the results of my other experiments did work. Included in the new menu item called "My Stuff" were "My Stations," "My Podcasts," and "My MP3tunes." Since the eight stations I put on my preset buttons aren't enough when the whole world wide web is available, I now have a menu with some stations I'm interested in occasionally sampling like KIIS, KFI, WMAL, WWVQ and WXMX.

Registering the radio gave me a free membership at a site called MP3tunes.com. It offers a "music locker" where I can upload my own files from anywhere and then listen to them on my clock radio. I uploaded a bunch of Christmas songs and Frank Jr.'s version of "A Visit from St. Nicholas." I'm not ready for the season to be over yet, which is good because I will be the narrator for the Christmas Cantata at All Saints Church this weekend.

So far my favorite feature has to be "My Podcasts." I was too excited to sleep, so until I drifted off, I listened to the latest podcasts from Kevin & Bean, Fr. Gary Braun and Coverville. The latter was a countdown of their top ten cover songs. A country version of "Gin & Juice" (NSFW) was outstanding.

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Monday, January 04, 2010

tenth or eleventh day of Christmas

The new clock radio I wanted for Christmas passed its first test this morning. It turned on at 4:30 a.m. and began playing WTOP. Or more accurately, wtop.com. The great gift from my wife receives both local FM stations and Internet streams.

The Sanyo R227 has eight presets for FM and eight presets for WiFi. I had a hard time finding eight local stations I liked enough to fill all the presets. I'm having the opposite problem narrowing down the thousands of Internet stations to pick my top eight.

For starters, I have programmed four news stations and four music stations. The news stations will stay on my buttons as long as their programming during the 4:00 a.m. ET hour interests me. I picked a station in each of the three cities where I've lived and one in St. Louis since I visit there often. They are WTOP, KNX, WINS and KMOX.

The music stations were a little easier to choose. I went with KROQ, KCRW and WLNG. The owner's manual says I can register my new toy at Reciva.com. By doing so, I can add stations to my device. I joined the site tonight and requested WINC, where my friend Paula works, as well as 101.5 The Music Place, where my friend Sarah works.

Since neither WINC nor The Music Place were on the list of stations already in the radio, I have temporarily assigned the last button to an Internet-only stream called "Christmas Vinyl." After all, the Christmas season runs through Sunday at my church.

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Sunday, January 03, 2010

well played, sir

Only two chapters in to "SuperFreakonomics," I had to put the book -- and the rest of my newly acquired reading pile -- aside. Once again, something else cut to the front of the line. Let me back up a bit.

A few years ago, Dr. Bill Bass partnered with writer Jon Jefferson to create a series of novels about the Body Farm and its fictional director, Dr. Bill Brockton. I have had the good fortune of interviewing the pair when each new book was released. In one of the stories -- I think it was the second one -- Dr. Brockton's truck was impounded and he had to use a different car. In a later chapter, he was driving the truck again. Off the air, I asked Jon about what I perceived as a discrepancy. He gave me a look that said "oh no!" and acknowledged that I had caught a mistake. He had gone back to add the plot point of the impounding but failed to change every single reference to Brockton's vehicle that followed. For the sake of humor (and accuracy), I had him make and initial a handwritten notation in my copy. In subsequent interviews and social meetings, Jon has always brought up my "eagle eye" attention to the detail in his book.

Dr. Bass recently held a lecture aboard the Volunteer Princess as a fundraiser for the William M. Bass III Forensic Anthropology Building. After the presentation, Dr. and Mrs. Bass and I made plans to go to lunch with my family during the week between Christmas and New Year's. We talked about science and about some additional ideas to raise money for the building fund. They were both very excited about the next book, "The Bone Thief," which will be published in March.

Coincidentally, my family and I had also been invited to a potluck party at Jon Jefferson's house this past week to celebrate his new marriage. When he and his wife met my children, he brought up the story of me finding the error in "Flesh and Bone." This time, however, he added that he had a proposition. How would I like to proofread the new book? The catch was that I would have to read fast. Any corrections would be due by Monday, January 4th. I quickly accepted the offer and Jon gave me a large envelope stuffed with 362 sheets of copy paper. As I read the excellent book-to-be, I realized what Jon had done. If a small continuity error slips by and gets published in "The Bone Thief," it will be my fault!

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

need to venti

As a coffee novice, I was surprised and a tad disillusioned by what my daughter told me. We were sitting in a booth in the Market Square storefront shared by Knoxivi and The Lunchbox after watching Internet sensation Julia Nunes perform on Eleven o'Clock Rock. You might recall me mentioning her appearance three weeks ago. I borrowed my daughter's camera to grab a picture while Julia was singing.



My daughter bought herself a coffee, which came with one of those cardboard wraparounds that had the Seattle's Best Coffee logo on it. While it's old news to most people, I had no idea that Seattle's Best is owned by Starbucks. It seemed weird to me that Starbucks didn't change their subsidiary's name to "Seattle's Second Best Coffee." When my wife and son asked why I looked so confused, I said it was like finding out that Coke owned Pepsi or that McDonald's owned Burger King.

So if Seattle's Best is not a competitor of Starbucks, who does truly compete with the coffee giant on a national scale? The best my family and I could come up with was Panera Bread and Dunkin' Donuts. I remember a place in L.A. called The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf but it's not national. My son said there's a place called Kaldi's in Missouri and my daughter mentioned a joint called Caribou Coffee, which has stores in 16 states. Where do you like to get your caffeine?

Meanwhile, my free coffee quest continues. I scored freebies from Starbucks and from Seattle's Best this fall. Tonight I got a coupon for a free cup at Pilot just by becoming their fan on Facebook. Hey Weigel's, couldn't you do the same thing on your page?

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