Happy Holidays... Want to See My Nuts?!?!?!

How about my balls then?

Too soon for a cock joke?

Jay About to Explode!

I ate several ribs, a pulled pork sandwich, a couple fried pickles, french fries, sweet potato fries, some brisket... I think that is it... at Big Fatty's last night.  It was delicious but I thought I was going to barf.  I love beer, seriously, no a forbidden love but like if my wife ever leaves me I might re-marry and the lucky lady will be St. Pauly Girl in a 16oz can!!!  Well, last night i was si full I had to leave a 3/4 full brew dog to avoid a messy explosion.  I was embarrassed, I hid the beer behind a ketchup bottle.  Frikcin' holidays.

So as it is the end of the year do I need to have a top ten list or something?  Nah... I'm not doing that this time.  Let's relfect on the season for a moment.  How many cookies have you eaten in the past 4 weeks?  Me?  1325846887.  Not counting brownies, cake, pie, and other treats.  What are going to be the best holiday gifts you get that you f*ing do not need because it is a device you only need once in a great while but you get a new one every year?  Wine stopper?  How many people keep 17 open bottles of wine in the house?  Well, we could... we have the stoppers to make it happen!  Who needs coasters?  Not this guy!   And who could survive w/out a flashlight of some sort?  Well, if you find yourself running low we have them strewn throughout the house!!!  So anyway, here is a gift from me to you.

Friday!!!

I forgot

About one of the real gems in Philly... so we cruise down into the lobby of the hotel on Saturday and there were a shit ton of foo foo dipshits w/ their dogs in the lobby.  Ok, it seemed weird but there was a pamphlet in our room about how the hotel was pet friendly and everything so I didn't really think about it.  Well, later when we came back the lobby was still full of dogs.  And there was Santa.  Now it is getting really weird.  So yup, all these ya-yos are there to have a picture taken w/ Santa and their dog.  Well, it makes sense... you want to create memories Bowser will remember when he is all grown up!  They do grow up so fast, just last year Spike was 14 and this year he is 21!!!

BTW, I made the mistake of perusing the Rolling Stone top 100 guitarist list.  These things are always so dumb, but so am I so I read lists because they are easy to digest... like soup.  Anyway, somehow James Hetfield is on the list but Kirk Hammett who is obviously the better guitar player is not.  Meanwhile Robert Johnson who is a legendary influence is only at # 71 behind the likes of John Lennon who may be many amazing things but he is an only ok to good guitar player?  Tom Morello is fine but ahead of Mark Knopfler or Muddy Waters?  Nope. Johnny Ramone at 28?  If you can only play 2 chords can you really be at #28? F*ck that. 

Well, anyway... I need to go doll up Boomer my cat... we are heading over to Sears for our family photo!!!

Jay About Philadelphia

We had a wedding down in Philly this weekend and it was not too bad.  It is always fun to visit a new city as an adult and see the sights.  We flew in direct Friday mid day and it was an easy trip.  I noticed that there is very little traffic for a major city.  Especially to and from the airport which is a very quick jaunt.  I also noticed that while the streets feel very tight and right on top of you the buildings are not very tall.  It is just a tight well laid out grid of brick town houses w/ an occasional taller office building or hotel.  The city was relatively clean and seemed safe.  It was not a particularly good looking city like New York.  It seemed more blue collar/ Midwestern?  The airport is a real piece of shit and they have some real assholes working there.  It is dirty and gross but the planes we were on were on time so that is something.

While there we wandered around and ate some pretty good food.  My special lady and I stayed at the Palomar which is a Kimpton hotel very much in their corporate image.  It was clean, modern, kind of hip.  The bed was very comfortable and they had nice bath products.  Oh yeah, and zebra and leopard print bathrobes.

We wandered out the first day and ate at some random tapas place that I cannot remember the name of.  What I do remember is that lunch really stayed w/ me. That and we tried a bottle of "authentic Basque apple cider" called Stasteg.  It was described as funky and it sure as shit was.  The first sip tasted vaguely of urine.  It got better and more interesting but I will never order it again.  It was an adventure in a bottle, that I will say.

We had a drink at Alam de Cuba a very cool Cuban restaurant.  It was garnished w/ sugar cane and was a real treat.  We then moved onto dinner at Amada a sick tapas joint near the old part of the city.  It was delicious.  The Wagyu was great, the octopus was amazing, the scallops were divine as was the spinach and chickpea dish.  It was all very excellent and the setting was cool as well.  Bring your checkbook though, it is expensive.  1 3/4 thumbs up.  After that we met some friends and that is were it all went awry... let's just say we had a fun time... too fun and spots like Grace's and the Good Dog Bar.  It was a long and painful evening.

Next morning we got up late and wandered to Pietro's coal fired pizza place.  It was good not great and the servings were huge.  The crust was good and it was a relaxed scene which was nice.  After that we wandered around taking in the sights and checking out the neighborhoods.  Then on to the wedding at the Philadelphia Raquet Club.  It was an  old school raquet club and pool w/ several very good size and reasonably priced rooms.  The ceremony was in the grand entrance and was quite nice.  We had a casual buffet dinner and drinks were in a couple lounges complete w/ crazy old school art and pimp red leather club chairs.  It was a cool scene and a very nice wedding.  We managed to pull the ripcord before the after after party and that was huge.

Our last bite was at the Parc Diner which is a very large and bustling french bistro style place on the park (as you might imagine).  It was quite professional.  The food was good, not outstanding.  I had poached eggs and asparagus, my wife had an omelet.  The coffee was good, and the service was pretty much on top of things.  I would like to try it again for a casual late lunch as opposed to hung over breakfast.

And then it was back to the dirty airport for our flight out.  All I will say about that is that it all ended ok but US Air, you are not ok.  Train your people not to be assholes.  And stop ripping people's faces off.  Jerks.

Good trip, I am a Phan of the City of Brotherly Love...

Jay About... the U-Mall?!

So this past weekend we were looking to upgrade my special lady's phone and a logical place to start was the Verizon spot in the mall on Church Street.  Except for the small detail that they had just moved to the University Mall in SoBu.  Shit.  Ok, whatever, we can cruise over there.  When we moved back to Burlington some years ago the U-Mall looked like it was straight out of a zombie movie... or Iran.  It was about 70% dark w/ bad lighting, yards between open stores and construction for construction's sake everywhere.  It was a huge space that had a Sears, and Country Buffet, and maybe a seasonal calendar shop open.  It was depressing.  The mall came up as a selling point for a commercial real estate deal proposed to my company from a guy down in NYC.  I asked him if he had ever been to the mall and laughed at him.  Fast forward to a couple years ago and I needed a pair of sneakers.  The nearest place I could find an Olympia Sports or similar spot was the good old U-Mall.  It was now probably 88% occupied and a few large stores had moved into the empty spaces including a Kohls.  The lighting was still bad, the stores were still mostly transitional, the place was pretty sparse with shoppers and it was still a little depressing as malls go but it was somewhat useful and I was able to buy sneakers.  Well, when we went in the other day it was a revelation.  The place was totally different.  Granted it is the holidays but it was packed w/ people.  The place was bight and well lit and probably close to 95% occupied w/ the only dead spaces out in random corridors to the parking lot.  There were big well know stores as well as kiosks of every type.  You need a cell phone?  No problem.  A red sox hat, t-shirt, mug, bumper sticker, floor mat, full body suit?  No problem.  Some random piece of goofy clothing?  They have got you covered!  My favorite stores were the hippy clothing stores w/ 240 wool hats and a shit ton of those weirdly cut sweat shirt type things made out of rope... and the dollar+ store which featured calendars, old people collectibles, and bongs.  Sure, why not?  Who doesn't want a miniature porcelain schnauzer and a bong for $2?  We did not get the phone but you have come a long way U-Mall!!! 

In an aside note... I was recently looking at my stats for this blog and I am pretty disturbed at what searches have brought people to my little stitch and bitch.  I am not sure how "young Japan boy" is possibly incorporated in any one post in this blog but it is apparently a pretty popular search topic and will probably create a spike in views on this post as well. Of course the second highest hit rate is for a post entitled "Here them ring, ding a ling". I am pretty sure you can figure out what search term is bringing folks to that post.  Does this make me feel a little not awesome?  Yup it sure does.  I would think more people would find me looking for "U-Mall", "F*** you", "shitty teenage girls driving while texting", maybe even "supper club".  Are people not searching for supper clubs on the internet?!?!?!  Well then I am not sure what to think.

So

Let's just say I might have spoken too soon when it comes to Ri Ra's as a food option.  My stomach lost control like a fat kid w/ cake!  Seriously, I had to pull into a Dunkin Donuts to f*ck the place up not 15 minutes from my house and that was not the worst of it (which I will not describe).  So I am downgrading to a 1 thumb used to plug the dyke.

Ok, on to more pleasant news.  We got our Christmas tree today... yeah, I know it is early but we are travelling later this month so we had to pull the trigger early to actually enjoy it.  It was kind of funny negotiating w/ 13 year olds, we bought our tree from the Boy Scouts.  Should I have fake punched them to get the price down?  Probably not, I would have found myself hod tied in a 4 square knot being handled by the Lord of the Flies!  Anyway, we got the tree home and realized we had a slightly fuller Charlie Brown tree.  Well, f*ck you!  It is our Charlie Brown tree and I love it!!!!!

I saw a "Free Palestine" bumper sticker the other day and I wanted to ram the dipshit off the road.  For one, the Palestinian territory is free no?  They vote for their own terrorist leaders and everything?  Should they get their own "state"? Sure, why not?  Why not beg Jordan or Lebanon?  Look, I am not Jewish or a Republican so I don't give a shit about Israel.  Have they been there forever?  Sure... so have Christians, Muslims, and whoever was there before all of them.  What I do know is that every time the Israelis try to give a little ground to appease the feel good crowd some Hamas asshole launches a shit ton of rockets into some innocent families backyard.  The moment Israel gives ground and the Palestinians actually respond w/ peace not savagery I will think about not punching the hippy w/ the "Free Palestine" bumper sticker in the face!  So go and eat more kale asshole.

Hey, how about Tim Tebow winning again.  Has a shittier QB ever won more games?  Flutie?  Grossman?  That guy who played for the Ravens and now says dumb stuff on TV?  Amazing!  Good for you Tim.  Now way you can beat the Patriots...

Hey How About Ri-Ra's?!

Had lunch there and it was not too bad... We started off w/ some hot wings which had pretty ok flavor. What was nice was that we asked for them to be crispy and they sure as shit were crispy.  We also had sweet potato tater tots which were excellent!  For my entree I had a Rueben.  It was not great but not terrible.  The fries were sucky.  Service was good but it was way overpriced.  All in all an interesting off the run lunch spot that I never think of.  I needed the greese and cheese.  My body is way to lean right now!

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6661087/party-frog