THOMnottom

Alright, South Jersey ain’t exactly uncivilized. But when your life is so completely wired – an slight deviation causes some serious withdrawal. On our very first night away from home, Chris Rock says, “George Bush hates midgets” on live freakin’ TV; and I can’t check out the blogosphere’s reaction, much less post about it myself. Talk about frustrating. I can’t even remember what actress we wanted to look up while watching Taxi (we were just killing time before heading out for dinner, honest!)

Inspite of my refusal to plan things properly, Lisa and I had a lovely time. The gambling sucked in A.C., but when doesn’t it? Next time I’ll try some tables, but the poker machines just ate our money non-stop this time around. Nevertheless, our first time dining at P.F. Chang’s was fantastic – later gastrointestinal activities notwithstanding. Next year I’m sure we’ll spend another weekend down there, and stick with the Tropicana. Along with the Chang’s, they also have a Cuba Libre, The Sound of Philadelphia, Carmine’s, Red Square, and more. Plenty of possibilities for entertainment in the same building.

Saturday found us searching for Cape May. We stumbled upon the great (and free) Cape May County Zoo, and had a blast until I realized that I forgot the spare battery for my camera. What and idiot! I still got a lot of great shots, and saw capybaras – which rock because they are essentially extra-large guinea pigs.

Attempts to find lodging in either the Cape May or Wildwood areas were futile, and eventually we fled all the way to Millville. But that worked out better, as Sunday we opted to explore the way cool (and nearby) Wheaton Village rather then head down to the beaches. Glassblowing and pottery were far more up our alleys – I even purchased the vase (to be shipped) made during the demonstration we attended. I’ll write more about that experience when it arrives (the vase, not the experience).

The great seafood place we found on Long Beach Island (if you ever find yourself at Terrace Tavern, try the blackened seas scallops) for dinner definitely helped cap off the trip, but it is good to be home. Especially when our little goobers (Jessie, Shadow, and even Boo Boo) are waiting, along with boxes containing cool things I bought. I’ll be sure to model my new shirts sometime soon!

Lisa and I are headed out for a quick three day jaunt down to the Southern parts of this state. We’ll be hitting Atlantic City and Cape May in an attempt to recharge our batteries before she starts her new job next week. While the money will be good, the commute will be great, and the work will be less stressfull; she will regularly be teaching classes on Saturdays. That means we won’t have the opportunity for another vacation for awhile.

Oh well, we could use more money and less stress.

So here’s the thing: I don’t know how to use a charcoal grill. Seriously, they’re confusing and difficult. But this past weekend forced me to use one… not just use one… buy one.

Saturday, as I mentioned, Lisa and I headed down to my parents’ house and then had dinner over at my sister Laura’s place. The plan was a barbeque. Unfortunately, they hadn’t tried used the grill all season. Can you guess what went wrong? After several humorous attempts to light the suspect burners and simultaneously run for cover, my brother-in-law Carlos and I finally has to call it quits. Not a good way to start an afternoon of grilling… you know, without a grill.

Since I’ve been thinking about getting a cheap grill, and since Lisa volunteered us to throw a party on Labor Day, I suggested heading out to Home Depot or Lowes or something and picking one up. Carlos and I headed out to the store. After a few minutes of debating over size vs. price, I decided the 20 extra bucks was worth it to get the larger unit and bought a Weber 22-1/2 inch One-Touch Silver charcoal grill. It’s not even a hundred bucks; it’s a Weber; and it’s a beaut!

Back at their place, Carlos made short work of assembling the grill. I decided to make it easy on us and picked up some of that pre-treated charcoal. You know, the stuff that’s already been soaked in lighter fluid. Yeah, it’s as unsafe as it sounds.

Well, to be fair, there were directions. And when you’re going to light something on fire that has directions on how to do so, it’s probably a good idea to follow them. I think the very first step was “DO NOT USE MORE THAN 3 LBS!” 3 lbs just doesn’t look like much in the 22.5″ grill, and I had trouble even believing that the bag was 8 lbs like it said. Carlos didn’t need to prod me much before I finally dumped the whole bag in. Later in the evening we still couldn’t figure out why I kept listening to Carlos.

So, what do you think happens when you light more than twice the recommended amount? The first thing is you rush to wheel the 3 foot flames away from the tree you inexplicably set it down next to. Then you try to place the lid on top to smother the flames. Well, not so much place as throw. And, not to surprisingly, it fell right off – much to Carlos’s chagrin, as he profusely apologized for scratching the lid of my brand new grill. No big deal, I just forced the lid down and killed the flames. Time to regroup.

Unfortunately, just as I was about to suggest removing some of the excess coals, Carlos decided we should re-light it. Have you ever seen someone make a bad decision, or make one yourself, and you can just keep replaying that one moment over and over again? I saw Carlos move towards the grill with the match, and I my “NO!” just didn’t have enough time.

Don’t worry, Carlos is fine. But man did those flames kick back up real fast. And Carlos managed to singe a good amount of hair off his right arm. Mainly we just couldn’t stop laughing. Even after we put out the flames again, and started the grill for a third time, and put the chicken on, and dove into the margaritas. It was damn funny. Especially considering we could see the little burnt ends of his hair.

In the end, I’ve found it’s very difficult to get the charcoal grill going, and just as hard to keep it going. Very little food actually cooked on it Saturday night – but it was pretty good. And the kielbasa I made on Monday was awesome. But I’m far from consistent, so I wouldn’t take any advice from me… except to always read directions when flames are involved.

Don’t get me wrong. I had a blast this weekend. I got to spend some quality time with a lot of people. But I came out on the other end more exhausted than I started. I’ll write more later, but here’s a quick breakdown:

Friday – Lisa hung out with her family during the day, and then she and I went out with her parents for dinner.

Saturday – We drove down to PA to see my family. After hanging out with my Mom for the afternoon, we all went over my sister Laura’s house for an attempted barbeque. Everything was great but… well, there’s quite a story involved.

Sunday – We stayed the night and had “breakfast” with Laura while waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. After some arts and crafts, we had dinner at my parents’ house before heading back home.

Monday – Another barbeque! This time it was for some old friends of Lisa’s as her “best oldest friend” Angie will be moving to the Left Coast soon.

Yeah, it was packed. At least I’m getting to enjoy some awesome leftover kielbasa for lunch. But now I need a break from my weekend…

Towards the end of my work day yesterday, I meandered over to the vending machines, as I am wont to do. To my surprise, there was another new treat dangling just above the coveted potato stix: Blair’s Death Rain Habanero Kettle CookedPotato Chips! Wow, that’s quite a mouthful. All the cheesy package design and promises of precipitous killing intrigued me, so I bought a bag.

Now, let me just mention at this point that I am a world-champion insanely-hot-food-eater. Alright, not really, but I have eaten some of the spiciest food you can imagine without batting an eye. I don’t really say this to brag, but to point out the fact that I’ve destroyed enough of my taste buds that I could probably munch on burning coals without noticing.

Armed with such intense bravado, I thought nothing of tossing a couple chips in my mouth. I can look back at this point and realize the mistakes I made, but perhaps ignoring the “XXX HOT” warnings and “FEEL ALIVE!” taglines was a tad foolish. But does anyone ever take those seriously? The again, the name “Blair’s Death Rain” shows the kind of guts that only a truly ridiculously hot chip could have. And yes, it was that hot.

I spent the next few moments alternately gagging and coughing with a touch of “trying not to vomit” thrown in for good measure. A little bit of water and a bag of the coveted potato stix later, and I was eventually able to choke the bag down. I never thought my world champion skills would be defeated by a mere vending machine snack pack!

Oh well, I won’t make that mistake again… I’ll take my time enjoying this next pack!

Take one (or two) cat(s).
Place in sink.
Take picture.
Enjoy.

(thanks to Cindy)

Time keeps marching on… like an alarm clock falling down an endless stairwell… Let’s try that again. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future. Forget it. I hit the big 2-9 on Thursday. You know what that means – I don’t get to complaing with the cool 30 year-olds yet, but everybody else in their 20s has already grown suspicious of me. That makes for a crappy year (aside from that wedding shindig – I love you honey!)

Anybody who really knows me knows that I don’t go in for the whole birthday celebration. It’s just not my style. Nevertheless (I think I use that word too much) cool stuff is a foot in Hoboken on that very same evening. First and foremost is a free Hoboken Rocks show on Pier A:

Secondly, fellow Eagles fan Furey has moved the Hoboken contingency of the fanbase over to Dipper’s (616 Washington Street), where they’ll be partying their collective asses off for the final preseason game against the Jets. Due to work obligations (they still pay me), I’m not sure what time I’ll be at either event, but I plan on hitting both. All are welcome to partake.

I haven’t spoken about the Eagles since The Day After, even though I’m still active on the message board and have even visited training camp (I promise, pictures are coming). It will probably remain that way as I hope to pick up with posting over at Philly Sports Net now that the season is rapidly approaching. Still, you’d think I could at least make a comment about the media circus that Owens has made of the offseason…

I kept my mouth shut for most of the time, because a lot of it was blown way out of proportion and a lot of people are going to look like idiots if (as it now appears) he ends up playing the season and putting up great numbers. Yeah, I’m pissed at how he’s handled things and he does some to have the mental capacity of a child, but as long as he plays… I’m not saying I definitely want him back next season, but I’m happy this year.

Nevertheless, this letter from a “young fan” is absolutely hysterical:

Dear TO,

All I want is for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. Before you came, the Eagles couldn’t even get to the Super Bowl. Then you came, and we were the best Eagles team I had ever seen. We got to the Super Bowl and almost won. You were awesome! I decided that with just a little more practice this year, we could win it all.

But then my dad told me that you might not be on the team anymore. I was really upset and cried. Then I watched the news and saw that you were crying too! This made me cry even more! You said you needed to feed your family. I asked my mom if maybe we could help feed your family so that you would stop crying and help us win the Super Bowl. My mom told me that the Eagles gave you over 9 million dollars last year and that you can afford to buy your own food. I told her that you were crying and maybe you had spent it all already. She told me you were going to get 3 million more dollars this year. I asked her how much a hot dog costs. That’s my favorite food! She told me they were 25 cents unless you buy them from the Eagles in which case they cost 5 dollars. I asked if she thought you could afford to buy enough hot dogs to feed your family and she said “Oh yeah”, but not in a normal way, she said “Oh yeah” in the way she says it when I ask her if I have to go to school or take a bath. I hate baths! I asked her how many hot dogs you could buy and she told me to figure it out myself. I had to get my calculator to do it and the answer was 12 million hot dogs! That’s a lot of hot dogs! But then I was thinking maybe you buy your hot dogs from the Eagles in which case they cost 5 dollars. So then I was thinking maybe you had more than 12 million people in your family. Do you? We have 4. 5 if you count my turtle. His name is Donovan McTurtle.

Then I saw you doing sit-ups in front of a mall. My dad told me that it was your house. So I asked my dad if 12 million people could fit in that house and he said “probably”. That’s when I realized that Eagles were being selfish and that the Eagles need to give you more money so that you can feed your entire family. And maybe they should make their hot dogs cheaper too. I thought this would help other people too because sometimes I eat a hot dog when my dad takes me to see you play.

But then I decided that maybe I could just start saving my hot dogs for you and that way I could help you feed all 12 million people in your family. So the other night when my mom made hot dogs, I sneaked 2 halves up to my room and put them in a drawer. But then I realized it would take me a very very very very very long time to have 12 million hot dogs and so I needed to get other people to help. So then I went around my neighborhood and asked people for hot dogs for you. But I got tired of telling them the whole story so I came up with a slogan that I thought might help everyone understand the situation. Then I tried to put the slogan on a shirt. At first the slogan was “For You T.O.” but I didn’t have enuff room for all of that so I just took the first letter of the “For” and just made the “You” a “U”, which is funny because that’s the way I always used to think it was spelled! So now my shirt says F.U.T.O!

I showed my dad the shirt and he laffed. He said it really got the message across. He said he knew lots of people that would wear that shirt. So that gave me another idea which was to try to sell the shirt itself! Which was a great idea because then I could just give the money to you to buy hot dogs for your humongous starving family that lives in a mall.

All for you TO!

F.U.T.O! Yours Truly, Jeremy

Since living in Montclair, Lisa and I haven’t taken much advantage of all the great restaurants around here. We’ve hit a few and found some favorites, but there’s so much more to explore. One that really grabbed us was the Okayama Japanese Steak House. It was situated right near the A&P and next to a laundromat, so we decided to try their sushi one night.

Now let me explain something about me and fish. I never ate fish growing up. The mere thought of it frightened me. The only reason I partook in fish sticks was the heavy fried breading, and the copious amounts of ketchup I used to cover the not-quite-fish taste underneath. !@(okayama/tuna.jpg:R150 popimg: “Oh Tuna! You delectable temptress of the sea!”) As I grew older and was forced to mature my taste buds, certain of our seafaring breathren became a part of my diet. Typically anything steak-like (or not fish-like), including swordfish, mahi mahi, and the o-so-delicious tuna. Tuna, you are a wonderful treat – seared, grilled, pan fried, or just plain raw I can eat you so many ways… Sorry, got distracted there for a second.

!@(okayama/makingsushi1.jpg:L150 popimg: “First you cut up the Tuna”) Entering my late twenties I had added a number of new dishes to my palate and even given the dreaded raw seafood from Japan a try. Surprisingly I didn’t find it disgusting, but I also didn’t see the huge appeal of such an expensive treat. Then I realized that, as with any good food, it depends on where you go. The first few places I went were alright, but you need to try it at a great place to realize how good it can actually be. Enter Okayama.

!@(okayama/makingsushi2.jpg:R150 popimg: “Then you put it on the rice”) Trying the place on a whim (it was also new to the area), I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sushi was incredible. I ate a couple other places since then, and found them to be greatly lacking – especially when it came to the all important tuna. Not that they were bad, or anything, but Okayama was just that good. They had an impressive selection of rolls (including a Montclair roll), and presented each one beautifully. The prices weren’t bad either, and I would frequently toss on another tuna roll at the end of the meal just because. Suddenly sushi was becoming a weekly affair (or at least biweekly).

!@(okayama/makingsushi3.jpg:L150 popimg: “Then you roll it up”) One of the main reasons for the deliciousness of their sushi was Allan, their chef. I loved watching the man work. He sure knew how to cut a fine tuna. Unfortunately, last week when we went in, the decor had changed – and so had the name. It was now Durama. The staff was friendly enough, and the manager was very curious about how we felt they were compared to Okayama so we gave it a try. While not quite up to snuff, the first dinner was definitely good. Even better, all sushi is 50% off for the first month.

Last night was a third visit in about two weeks. Since Ivy and Paul joined us, we ordered much more than usual and got to try a variety of rolls including their dragon roll, something with lobster, and a bunch of shrimp tempura. Everything was good, although I think we all agreed that the shrimp tempura was better on its own than in a roll. Currently my favorite dish of theirs is the ISO Fantastic (which includes tuna, whitetail, salmon, roe, and avocado in white seaweed). If anyone else is interested, the 50% off is good until the end of August. I know there’s little time left, but I’m sure we can fit another trip or two in by Wendesday. 😛

Durama’s biggest failing is the lack of specials. Okayama had a much larger selection of rolls, and I’ll certainly miss that. Above all else, I’ll miss Allan and his Pepper Tuna – one of the most delicious meals you could ever imagine.
!@(okayama/allan.jpg:L195 popimg: “Allan hard at work”) !@(okayama/peppertuna.jpg:R195 popimg: “Dear Pepper Tuna, I miss you so. Please come back!”)

After checking out the few spam messages that show up in my Gmail account on a somewhat regular basis, I decided it was time to let go of one of my oldest e-mail accounts. It is only used for a few old mailing lists that were never updated and the occasionaly out of touch friend, but appears to be the source for all incoming spam. Goodbye, dear moebius, you’ve served me well.

A few years ago I started paying for an e-mail forwarding service from Pobox. This was right in the middle of all the new pushes for free e-mail services (I still want to spit everytime I think of mail.com). After bouncing from server to server watching each one get overloaded with new users, I finally decided to pay for an address I wouldn’t have to keep changing. It worked out well, as they have also added a great spam filtering service which has cleaned my accounts up a hundredfold. Even when I initially switched to Gmail, the service was still very useful as I continued to employee one of the aliases as my primary point of contact.

But now I am not just using the Gmail interface and storage, but the address itself for almost all of my e-mail. So I changed the way my forwarding works. The Pobox accounts are used for signing up on mailing lists, registering products, communicating with unknown people, and backwards compatibility with sites containing my old information. This is all forwarded to my Gmail account where I can read it at my leisure and not have to worry about replying with my real address. People who actually know me can e-mail directly to the Gmail account. All of this is then forwarded to a server of mine for archival purposes. This setup filters out a lot of the unwanted cruft, provides me with an easy interface to all e-mail accessible from anywhere, and still archives it for my own personal backsup. But having such an old address around that had been bandied about so carelessly left a few leaks in the pipeline.

After 2 days sans the moebius persona, my spam box remains empty, and even the number of bounces and discards on the Pobox side have gone down dramatically. Le sigh, the end of another era.

Which reminds me, I have registered something like 5 or 6 new domains over the past couple weeks with at least one more to come. Two of them are for side projects I am working on – one for public consumption, the other not so much so (nothing inappropriate, it’s just something for a more select group of individuals). Yet another is for a “wedding blog” – guess I’ll have to tel Lisa about it. Thomslattery.com will probably never see the light of day, but I registered it anyway just to be safe. The others are up for some serious debate – I will be moving my bog sometime soon, and one of these names will be the new location (the rest might just be “abandoned’). I’m still debating whether or not to talk about them on this site and ask for opinions or make the decision on my own and reveal the new name and design all at once.

Boy, isn’t this all so exciting?!?!