Holiday Season

We are in it.  I am getting pretty not slim w/ the excess of food and drink.  I needed my winter weight anyway.  Gets pretty cold up here.  So a couple funny things to start the week.  Went to dinner last night and the conversation ended w/ talk of prostate exams and little weiners (not mine of course... it is average, AVERAGE DAMMIT!!!).  I enjoyed it immensly.  We were walking to grab a coffee Monday and a woman coming out of the record store missed a step and took a fantastic spill.  She got up and was fine.  I could not stop giggling.  Kharma enacted its vengance in the form of a faulty coffee lid that spilled coffee all over my pant leg and shoe.  It was worth it.  Somebody is somking either in the stairwell or up by the airconditioning vent in our building.  Thanks A-holes.  I am trying to kill myself w/ booze and high colesterol not smoke inhalation!!!  Occupy Burlington now occupying warm apartments.  Quitters.  Hey everybody, how about that Euro!  Let's give them a hand... and 1.5 Trillion dollars.  Maybe John Corzine should get in the mix.  Awwww, too soon?!  Here is a good away to look at some of our current financial issues being f*d up by the super shitty committee


Um, I guess that is about it.  I have basketball tonight so I will have to interupt my girth aquisition for at least a day.  Back on the horse tomorrow!

It is Montreal Time!!!

Special lady and I needed a little urban renewal time this weekend so we headed up to Montreal for the weekend.  It was a pretty ok trip.  I can start off by saying it will most likely be a long time before my wife allows me to pick a hotel for a trip again.  I admit she puts more time and thought into decisions than I do.  I had the mission this time and did some work but not enough.  My choice?  Le Hotel St. Marc... not surprisingly on St. Marc street over by St. Catherine.  It looked like a funky boutique and had positive reviews on Trip Advisor.  Well, it sure as shit was funky.  We were welcomed by a girl that barely spoke english or french.  To get to our room we went up a staircase and into a kitchen/ dining room that was overly full of junk and looked like my house when we have guests we only kind of like.  Sort of clean but not really.  We then descended a super tight spiral staircase to our room.  The room was very large.  It had a 60" TV.  And several chandeliers, and multiple surround speakers in the ceiling, and fake stained glass stickers on the sliding glass doors.  To top it off?  The largest Murphy bed you have ever seen.  Oh yeah, they also gave us a key that did not work and when we were out to dinner taped a key that did work to the outside of our door.  Glad I left our passports in the room.  1 thumb down.  Just pick a different place, you will thank me.

We made up for it w/ a few pretty good meals.  We rocked a local hotspot Au Pied de Cochon on Friday night.  If you like meat, particularly the weird bits like cheek, hoof and snout this is your place.  We had delicious cod fritters, an ok endive salad, a tasty but enormous pork chop, and very solid but cut too small fires (in duck fat).  It was a solid thumb and a 1/4 up until unsolicited our server gave us couple large glasses of Calvados.  2 thumbs up for the service my man!!!

Saturday we went to LBsquared spot Sho-Dan  for sushi.  While not as amazing as our first trip it was still very good fresh tasting sushi and I would recommend it unfailingly.  The explosion roll was a little disappointing but still good and the Kiss was very good.  Good service, good fish, and apparently THE spot if you are either out on a girls only evening or you are a skeevy single guy looking to pick up said women!

One last thing to mention was the Atwater Marche.  This was a huge indoor/outdoor market that had a bit of everything.  It is broken into stations and you can do a bite to eat at the pastry and coffee area and then hit up the butcher, the fish guy, the awesome fromagiers, the beer cellar, maybe grab some flowers and finish w/ amazing fruits and vegetables.  Everything looked fantastic and I would shop there every weekend if I lived in that city.  Even the bakery fare to go was delicious, particularly the still warm almond croissant.  Off the hook.  If you find yourself in the area, definitely check it out.

One thing not to check out?  The Dilemma.  It was on HBO last night and sucked balls but not in a good way.  Vince Vaughn is really pissing me off right now.  Stop making shitty movies, just stop it!!!

H&K

Went to see Harlod and Kumar Save Christmas last night.  It was pretty funny.  I thought the first one was great, the second one was very funny, and this one was pretty funny.  It was in 3-D and they played up the angle very well.  Would I prefer less dongs and more boobs?  Sure.  But the whole thing was filled w/ crude jokes I generally enjoy and shit flying at you from nowhere.  One funny thing is that we got there 5-10 minutes early and there was nobody there.  I suppose it makes sense when the stoners showed up to the stoner movie 5 minutes late.  Most of the crowd was probably picketing Merchant's Bank.  Also there was a line at 7:30 for the midnight showing of the new Twilight movie.  A line that apparently started at 1pm!  What the f***?!?!  First off it was a Thursday.  Don't you have school at 1pm?  Secondly, who lets their kid stay out until 2am on a school night to watch some stupid movie that will be in the theater at regular hours for weeks?  Fat dorky kids parents apparently...

I have other things related to my day to day situation that I would also like to say but probably shouldn't.  One interesting note is that much like the 99% protesters, there is a growing legion of folks who seem hell bent on f*cking themselves in the ear.  They don't know how to do it or even why they want to do it but they are DETERMINED to get it done!!! Unfortunately I am the ear.

OK, I have a couple things to talk about

First off, I met up w/ my special lady for date night a couple days ago at The Antidote in Vergennes.  Vergennes is a funny town that is in perpetual gentrification mode but never quite gets there.  It does have some very pleasant and unpretentious chow spots and this is one of them.  We rolled in and sat at the counter behind the bar (actually I was a couple minutes late and my lady already had a drink).  I ordered one up as well, a Manhattan.  It was well executed and well presented w/ a very solid sidecar in ice.  Nice start.  We started our dinner off w/ poutine.  I wish they used better cheese curds but ther gravy was a delicious sort of sweet Guinness gravy that was not bad at all.  My lady went w/ a ceasar salad w/ chicken which was pretty good but had a little too much chicken.  I had a modified Cuban sandwich that was porkilichious.   It featured habenero pickled onions and pickles, and it was good.  The side salad was also quite good.  The service was pleasant and attentive and the price was very reasonable.  I would go back no doubt... let's call it 1 2/3rds thumbs up.

Sunday I was down in NYC and took in the Foo Fighters at MSG.  They were really good.  I had been a luke warm fan for awhile.  I mean they are what they are, a power pop band that rocks out and creates anthems not unlike Bon Jovi.  Seriously, Bon Jovi could have done that Hero song right?  Which is fine, I like those guys too.  Well, I think frontman Dave Grohl really gets the joke.  He played to the crowd, he pumped his fist, he banged his head and ran all over the stage.  Most importantly they absolutely rocked out.  It was loud and it was tight.  They played for 3 straight hours w/ no breaks and had a sick encore that featured Joan Jett who looked and sounded great for an 82 year old woman.  It was a really fun time and if you like a rock concert not a goof fest in a coffee house... get your ass out to see the Foo!!




Overall it was a great weekend that I am still hurting from.  I could not hear properly for 18 hours.  That is good right?

Well, that did not go well!

We here in Burlington, VT have our own "Occupy" movement.  I am not sure which of the mostly local banks they are picketing, I am sure they are quite upset with that behemoth known as Key Bank!  Or even TD which is not a U.S. controlled bank at all... uh, Toronto Dominion you dumb f***s!  In any event there are a group of asswipes camped out in the City Hall Park and chanting bullshit from time to time.  Well one of them decided to shoot someone, possibly himself and now there is a dead body.  I drove by this morning and the cops are everywhere w/ police tape all over the park.  It is a mess.  In fact, it appears that most of these campsites are a mess, filled w/ robberies, assaults, and worse.  That is not a surprise given the mix of vagrants, and fools who have no organization and an unclear cost.  Well, congrats VT... you may have just jump started the end of the Occupy movement.  And for that I salute you!

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111110/NEWS02/111110019/occupy-burlington-shooting?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Let's Go Out of Bounds!

First thing is first, there is a Citgo station in Shelburne Village that recently was renovated w/ new gas pumps and all of that.  It has always been overpriced and guilty of employing ass clown high school punks.  Whatever.  I needed gas this morning and the price was reasonable so I decided to give the new digs a spin.  I swiped my card took out the nozzle and selected my grade.  I started to pump the gas except... no gas.  Ok, sometimes you have to wait for the attendent to fire the pump up.  I waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally I waled in and asked the dipshit why the pump was not working.  He said the machine read my card, did I select a grade?  I am 35 years old.  I have been a licensed driver in the U.S. for 19 years, over half of my entire life.  I am pretty sure I know how to use a f*ing gas pump!  So I walk back out, re-swipe, push the desired grade of gasoline and squeeze the pump.  Nothing.  What the F*CK?!?!  So the attendent comes out and examines my work, seems I am not a moron and actually can figure out how to use a gas pump? Weird!  He goes back in and figures out they had not turned on the breaker for the pump.  So you are a gas station who did not turn on the gas pumps?  Business for Playboy air fresheners must be good!  Anyway, I get the pump going and set the auto hitch, then go into the store for a coffee.  I wait for the guy in front of me to fix his coffee, and then fix mine, checking the types of blend, then adding cream and a top.  I then wait in line for another coffee buyer and a woman buying a pack of gum.  Was I offered a complimentary coffee for my troubles?  I forgot I was in Shelburne.  I was lucky I did not have to pay double for bothering a Shelburne worker with something as pithy as turning on the gas pumps!!!  After that nonsense I roll out to the car expecting the car to be filled. Nope... $9.22 and filling so slowly you would think it was pumping the gas from the very center of the earth!!  I wait for another 5 minutes and I am only at $11.  Time to cut this failed experiment off.  Thanks for the kick in the testicles Shelburne Citgo, I needed that to start my day! 

OK, on more fun news.  I have to say I am enjoying the Beiber and Herman Cain sex scandals (Penn State not so much... that is tragic).  I like to believe the Beiber story is true and that he is an aggressive a-hole behind the scenes.  It is just funny.  A 3'2" big headed bully!  It is even more funny to think about Cain and Beiber cruising together for chicks, w/ Beiber being the bigger degenerate at the bar.   "Hey Herman, look at those dirty birds over there... let's go get some tail!!!"  "Yeah, Beibs, I like your style!".  Haha.

In no way do I condone what these guys are accused of doing and if the stories are true they deserve to be fully prosecuted and that is serious especially in the case of any harrassment... that is not cool.

Maybe it would be better to imagine Beiber w/ a harmless degenerate, like Wooderson form Dazed and Confused.  "Hey Beibs, you know what I like anout these high school girls?  I get older and they stay the same age... yes they do..."  "That is funny Woooderson... I like their boobs!  Now pass that joint!!!"

I am in the wrong business

I can't figure the f*ing stock market out.  We get a shitty job number and unemployment is sticky at 9%.  The G-20 can't figure out how to use the IMF or fund their bailout plans.  MF Global lost clients' money, may have committed a crime, and will be a top 10 all time bankruptcy.  Greece and Italy may dissolve their governments in days.  And yet because Ireland may have a plan to save money and commodity prices are possibly up (which is not really a good thing for the consumer)... stocks are coming back and will most likely end the day up?  Seriously?!  Then there is Groupon whose IPO jumped 50% and is still up over 30% on the first day of trading.  Groupon is a company that does not make money, in a space already being overrun by competitors, and supported by fickle consumers.  And the stock is going up?!?!  Are stock traders morons?  I mean they have never been considered "smart money" but the moves over the last couple weeks is dumb. 

Of course I am currently shaking my head over some folks who seem to have forgotten what their product is altogether.  They make bacon.  It is farm style and nothing fancy but it is pretty good.  Instead of marketing the bacon, the powers that be are trotting out a whole pig complete w/ lipstick and a bow.  Sure, the bacon is included but it gets lost in the pig's beautiful eyes...

Whatever, I guess I just don't get it.