I've made liberal use of the grill lately. It's Wednesday evening, and this is the second night this week I'm grilling up some chicken breasts. Tonight, it's Pesto - Monday it was Havana Garlic & Lime. I didn't bother to check the weather before firing it up, but it really doesn't matter when your grill is 18 inches outside your door, and under cover of the upstairs patio.
If anybody is interested, there's a new episode of "Lost" on ABC tonight at 7:00 -- the first one since Hurley won the lottery about 4 weeks ago. Friday night is the season finale of "Battlestar Galactica" on the Sci-Fi channel. It's the second half of a 2-parter. Those 2 shows, along with "24", have been duking it out for my favourite show this year. I'd have to lean towards Lost - when it's on, I don't want to take my eyes off the screen. 24 has got the Bauer factor; it's a very enjoyable show. Galactica has been fantastic, too - the best writing of the ...
Even though my family is far from what you would call "religious", we still enjoy getting together for the holidays. So, for Easter Sunday, we had ourselves a little feast, and then played some cards - as is the tradition. For dinner, we had a beef tenderloin stuffed with a filling of minced mushrooms and shrimp with spinach - delicious. Also served were some grilled chicken pieces and some grilled shrimpies - also delicious. That was all accompanied by some corn, potatoes, rolls, etc. For desert, my grandmother's specialty - cheesecake. Not long after we sat down for dinner and began to gorge ourselves, Mom asked how everything was. I ...
The Chuck returned from Europe on Sunday, and brought with him a very special gift for moi - a French language version of a "24" graphic novel (not a "comic book"). How cool is that?! Now I have a reason to learn to read French. Although I think I understand the story already, just by looking at the pictures - Jack Bauer kicks some ass. Have you seen that annoying AOL commercial yet? (Unless you've been in a consistent vegetative state, I'm sure you have). By my count, they're running 3 versions of it - one full, and 2 trimmed down. If I hear that dumb ass saying "Spamity Calamity!" one more ...
For those of you who don't regularly check in on my other site, I've added 3 sites to my Projects page in the last week or so. (I wasn't kidding when I said I've been busy lately.) Oddly enough, I didn't do the design on any of these sites. One -- Ellington's -- was an existing site that needed a little help. I touched a few things up, and created a content management system in PHP/MySQL. The other 2 -- Simon Group and Infinity Builders -- are for the same company. I worked with a marketing firm to ...
Back in the days of my gleeful youth... On this day each year, I would retire to the couch with a case of Old Milwaukee for the the afternoon and watch myself full of NCAA basketball. Then I had to go and get me a job. Life hasn't been the same since. I've usually managed to have a TV somewhere near me for the first-round games, but it's not the same as kicking back and *really* enjoying the games. Now, for the first time in about 10 years, I have the means by which to re-live the glory days. Being "self-employed" does have some perks! Alas, I'm backed up with work at the moment, and will have to settle for listening to ...
Our good friend The Chuck is still overseas, I think in Paris at the moment. No word on if he's called Les from a cell phone yet. I also just learned that my brother and his girlfriend left yesterday for a 10-day visit to Japan. I don't have any details, other than the fact they're staying somewhere about an hour out of Tokyo. Mom mentioned that they were studying their English-Japanese translation guide on the ride to the airport. Barry's trip is sort of ironic for me, in that I was just talking to Les about traveling overseas. Although I'd love to see Europe (Spain, in particular), my #1 destination would ...
The White Trash Pick & Save is dead. Long Live the White Trash Pick & Save! Today marks the grand opening of the new and improved Holt Avenue Pick & Save, located in the parking lot of the former Holt Avenue Pick & Save. Haven't been there yet, but I can only hope that they retained the El Rey production facilities - nothing beats fresh Pico Di Gallo - and the "Crazy Taco" (Taco Loco).
OK, so there's this shooting ramapage in Brookfield. It's a horrible thing, and I wish it hadn't happened. Condolences to the friends and families. I completely understand the local TV stations interrupting regularly scheduled programming that afternoon to bring us "Breaking News". That's what they're supposed to do. However, and this is primarily targeted at Channel 4 in Milwaukee (WTMJ), what was the reasoning behind expanding the Saturday night 10:00 news from 30 minutes to 60 minutes? After repeating the only known facts about the event, and a few on-location reports - what else was there to say? There were no additional facts to be reported. There were other things that happened in the world that day. Side note about the "on-location" ...
The Field Of Sixty-Four was announced yesterday, and office pools are off and running today. If you're going to be e-mailing your picks to someone, check this out. KUSports.com has an online form you fill out, then generate a nice, clean printable version of your picks in standard bracket format. Just for the record, I like: # Illinois # Wake Forest # UConn # Syracuse National champ? I'm not telling yet - check back on Thursday.
Our good friend The Chuck is off for Jolly Old England and Gay Paris today. Good luck, and sorry I didn't get a chance to give you and Connie those "USA #1" t-shirts I had planned on picking up - maybe they'll have some at the airport. I really hope you remembered the fanny packs, though. Have fun, and try not to get arrested.
I hadn't had a drop of the stuff in a couple of days. Told myself I didn't need it, that I could stop anytime I wanted to. Besides, I finished off the last of what I had on hand on Monday, and forgot to go out for more. When I realized I didn't have any yesterday, I took it as an opportunity to prove that I didn't have to have it. Who was I trying to fool? Judy was still asleep, so I made my way quietly out of the bedroom this morning, closing the door behind me. As I pulled a cup off the shelf, I said to myself "it's OK - one little cup won't hurt." I reached into the ...
Roughly 3 weeks ago, I sent in payment for the renewal of my license plate tags. Last week, I received a notice that - although they gladly cashed my check - they would not process the renewal until a parking ticket was paid off. The notice listed the date of the citation as December 12, 2001. That's more than 3 years ago. I thought it a bit odd that they would have let me renew for the last 3 years, but decided that now was the time to collect their $40. I tried to pay the ticket both online and over the automated phone system. Unsuccessfully. There were 2 problems. First, the State listed an incomplete citation number - they forgot a ...
It's a well-known fact that I love a good heist movie. And even better than a movie about a heist would be hearing details about a real-life heist. [Side note: The ultimate experience would be a movie about a heist gone wrong that somehow included zombies.] Thank you, Court TV. "Masterminds" is being broadcast every night at 9:00 Central this week. Tonight's episode was about a cat burgular (Bill Mason) who targeted the rich and famous, relieving them of several millions of dollars worth of jewels over the course of his career. Mason's specialty was scaling and rapelling the sides of high-rise apartments and condos in the Ft. Lauderdale area. Among his victims over the years: Phyllis Diller, Bob Hope, Robert "...
Have you seen the recent General Motors "OnStar" commercials? It's a series of kids talking to a camera, asking their parents if they would "put [them] in a car without a seatbelt", "put [their] little brother in a car without putting them in a child seat", etc... Then they ask if you would consider putting them into a car that doesn't come equipped with "OnStar". Finally, they look sadly into the camera and say, "Please mommy and daddy, don't kill me - buy a GM car." Or maybe that's just what goes through my head every time I see that commercial. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Our good friend Dan Cody is about to start a new job, and his about-to-be-former-co-workers (some of whom are still around from my days at SM) took him out for cocktails last night. Dan was kind enough to invite me along for the ride. We started out at Borrego's on Water Street, but moved over to the Milwaukee Ale House for a bite to eat. On the way in, we couldn't help but notice the large sign that read "Karaoke Tonight!" For those that don't know, to Dan that's the equivalent of offering a smack addict, well, smack. By the time karaoke got started, most everyone had left us for the evening, ...
It's one of those semi-pseudo-milestone birthdays (at least I'm smart enough not to mention which one), and she's not overly excited about it, but please join me in wishing the lovely and talented Miss Judy Bostetter a very happy birthday. Please enjoy this slideshow of some Judy photos, with a musical accompaniment by a very special guest. (Flash required!)
I stumbled across a little thing called SlideShow Pro yesterday. I had been looking into some options for a portfolio web site, and also for the photo gallery on this site. SlideShow Pro is a very cool Flash "Component". You plug it into your Flash MX application, drop it into a movie, update some paramaters, and Boom! -- instant slide show. I was able to recreate my own photo gallery in about 45 minutes, start to finish. While I'd like to be able to modify more of the final product, the options that are available are pretty impressive. All for the low, low cost of $20 American. The base for this code comes from a designer/flash developer who, among other ...