Severe Weather Warning Alert

By now I am becoming a bit of an expert on forecasting severe weather storms in the mid-Atlantic region. Just prior to Christmas we got hit with Winter Wallop 2009. This storm brought about 20 inches of snow to the Philadelphia region and resulted in some real headaches. Then this past weekend we got hit with Snowpocalypse 2.0. This storm was even bigger than Winter Wallop 2009 and brought about 27 inches of snow.

Now we're gearing up for what I'm calling "The Snowlocaust." According to my radar studies, it appears as though we've got a double barrel front system working its way towards the Mid-Atlantic from the Midwest & Great Lakes areas, along with a low pressure system hitting from the South. Some old-timers will tell you that the likelihood of having three classic Nor' Easters in the span of two months is preposterous, but that is exactly what my studies reveal. The Snowlocaust will begin moving into the Philadelphia region early Tuesday evening where it will turn into a stalled pressure front that gains energy from the coastal shore winds. Expect this storm to creep through the region over a period of 18-24 hours with total accumulations reaching upwards of 8-28 inches. It will be snow on top of snow on top of snow . . . there will be snow all over the fucking place & our floor will be a complete fucking mess.


Image from Snowpocalypse 2.0

I'm Back Shitheads.

Man! Has it been long since I blogged or what? By my count it's been over two and a half months, not counting that shitty post on the first of the year. My failure to blog has been due in part to extreme laziness over the Holiday break, extreme business since returning, and some extreme video-gaming mixed in the middle. I generally only do blogging and shit like that when I have a medium level of laziness and business, and that's where I am in life right now. So what's new, you ask?

Last night I saw the blockbuster extravaganza movie "Avatar" in IMAX 3D. A lot of people have been talking about this thing and it's in all the blogs and so I finally got around to seeing it. First we went out to dinner at this place, which was pretty good. Our dinner was over by 7:30 pm, and the IMAX movie didn't start until 10:10pm, and since it was an IMAX we had to leave the city and go across the bridge into the New Jersey suburbs. So we crossed the bridge and were in New Jersey and still had two hours to kill. There's not much over there but suburban shopping centers and a mall, so we went and got a drink at Houlihans. If you are ever ever looking for a polite place to get a few drinks on a Friday night, and maybe you want to kick back a few mudslides, then you should probably start going to Houlihans more often. Just a really nice place to go and have a really great time and let all your cares from the week slip out the door.

At around 9:30 we finally got to leave Houlihans and go to see our movie spectacle at the IMAX. I was prepared to enjoy the special effects and hate the movie and that is exactly what I did. I don't believe I've ever seen a 3D movie like this before and it was quite the experience. My favorite parts to look at included: (1) the trailer for the Hubble Telescope 3D IMAX experience movie; (2) the scene where the three turncoat people are sitting in that little glass prison thing right before that woman breaks them out and it looks like they are really sitting in front of me, and; (3) the scene where the main blue guy first gets lost and he is touching those pink flower things. I bet a lot of younger kids are getting really stoned and doing a lot of LSD before going to see this movie. If I was a younger kid I would have definitely done some LSD and gone to see this thing and, man, would I have been geeked out or what? Overall the movie was really dumb, but worth the $15. I would love to see some space or ocean or other nature documentaries in that style of film.

So that's about it for now. The Jayhawks are playing the Wildcats tonight in what is going to be a real tough game for the Jayhawks, but I think they are going to win it. Cole Aldrich is really starting to find himself and most of the guys have been dribbling pretty good lately. I've been having really solid and regular bowel movements every morning and, for me, that is a healthy range of bowel movements. I've also started doing some pretty intensive daily cardio exercises in an attempt to get myself into better shape. I'm also looking to set up a regular racquetball game on Friday afternoons, as I've gotten out of the racquetball playing routine. Looking forward to warmer weather and I still hate my cat.

Looking Back Ahead

So its 2010 now, which means we are currently living in the future. The future is pretty impressive, if not entirely what it was promised to be in the movies. It seems like most of the futuristic improvements have come in the form of information access and mobility. The internet has proven very popular, as have thin TVs, portable telephones, and luggage with extendable handles and roller wheels. Here are some observations I've made recently:

I've never seen a retarded Mexican person.
Picture telephones came so gradually that nobody even really noticed or cared.


And that's about all I've thought about for the past two months.

Chicago City Redux.

Another weekend & another wedding in Chicago City. This time it was the wedding of long-time blog reader Sam Spratlin to the lovely bride, Bethie Polark.

Due to time constraints, I can't give a full play-by-play of this weekend, but I can say that this wedding was a real hoot and went off without a hitch thanks in large part to my oversight as a groomsperson. After the ceremony I received a lot of compliments and some people even inquired as to whether they could hire me to be a part of their weddings. Some of my favorite things from the weekend include: surf & turf, tiny cheeseburgers, the chocolate cake, party bus, TOTAL, Matt Cassity, Junior Bridesmaids, people from Kansas, parade of babies, pork sliders, wedding reception, and dancing.

This wedding just about does it for the stage of my life where my friends get married all the time and it looks like Leslie and I's marriage in May will be the grand finale.

Also, I really do like Chicao City.

The Top Five Foods fo All Time.

#1. Fried Chicken: I can eat fifteen fried chicken legs without any problem at all. I could eat twenty easy, but then I would start feeling a little self conscious. I will not stop eating the fried chicken when the meat is gone, instead I will gnaw the marrow from the the bones and chew the cartilage from the ends.

#2. Barbecue Ribs: I prefer the baby back and I prefer them hickory smoked with a spicy dry rub and a light, yet sticky, & slightly sweet sauce. One slab for me and whatever's left over from yours will suffice. Maybe I like ribs better than fried chicken, but I'd never want to have to choose. I think, coming off the barbecue season, my appetite for ribs is somewhat diminished, but ribs & fried chicken are certainly numbers one and two.

#3. Giant Burrito: I'm not talking about a Chipotle burrito or anything like that. I'm talking about a giant (2.5lbs), straightforward, beef burrito smothered in green & red chile sauce. Not some burrito you get in New York City or Los Angeles, I'm referring to a New Mexican burrito served right up next to four or five margaritas and endless baskets of homemade tortillas and guacamole topped off at the end with some warm sopapillas.

#4. Chicken Fried Steak w/Country Gravy: I will eat a serving of chicken fried steak in less than five minutes and I will not breathe while I eat it. I will eat it until I sweat gravy. I have been to brunch meals where I down one of these things before the other people have even started on their toast and I will consider ordering another one, but I refrain out of fear of becoming a pariah.

#5. Pizza: a good slice of pizza with chunks of italian sausage as topping is as good as anything else on the list, but it can be irksome at times to find a good slice. A bad slice is always regrettable. So simple and cliche, but so undeniably delicious.

Honorable Mentions: buckets of boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce; biscuits & sausage gravy; chicken tikka masala; cheeseburgers; sushi.

A Complete and Thorough Summation of My Recent Trip to Chicago.

Went to Chicago City this past weekend for the wedding of Mark & Adele Hansen. I booked myself a very reasonable flight time on Friday and left Philadelphia right on time at 10:20EST and arrived in Chicago City around 11:30CST. From there I hopped onto a train which took me to the area where Sam works near the Chicago City River. I haven’t been to this part of the city for a long time and was pleased by the number of bridges and the crisp autumn breeze. I walked over one of the bridges and into Sam’s workspace. His workspace reminded me of a Kindergarten for adults and I don’t know how they get any work done there. It’s my guess that they don’t get as much work done as they could get done if they took out all the fun stuff and put in some more disciplined chairs and some content filters on the internets.

From Sam’s work we went to a cheeseburger store that was located just up past this chocolate factory. We had a beer and prepared to order a cheeseburger when Matt Cassity called us on the phone. Matt Cassity was back at Sam’s house and he wanted us to meet him. We called off the burgers and delayed our gratification so that we could eat pizza with Matt Cassity. When we got to Sam’s house Matt was there waiting and we had some Old Style beers and stood in the kitchen to do some catching up. Soon thereafter Sam’s fiancé, Bethie, arrived home with one of her friends whose name escapes me. We all conversed briefly until Bethie’s friend left to meet up with her husband of one year. We sat around for a while longer eating various chips and dips and watching the Phillies and drinking cans of Old Style before eventually leaving for pizza.

Pizza was really great as we had both thin and thicker styles of sausage/tomato pizza of which I liked the thinner better, but only by a slim margin. Mark Hansen’s dad just happened to be there at the same time and this was the first time I got to meet this character. This guy is pretty indescribable and hilarious and he bought us a round of beers with our pizzas. Eventually Matt Blume showed up and we all left the pizza place to meet up with the wedding party at some loft-style bar place. We all drank more beer, I drank some gin and tonics, and then Darren arrived and spoke fondly of his newly born son. From there we went to several more bars. For some reason I thought all the bars were gay bars, but in reality there were just a lot of dudes out at these bars and only one of the bars was (maybe) a gay bay. Eventually I got myself drunk enough to go to bed on Sam’s couch and I slept the night away beneath a surprisingly warm quilt. Mike Klodginski slept beside me atop an air mattress on the floor.

Saturday was the day of the wedding. I woke up on the couch still tired from the night before. We laid around in our respective lying places, watched some college football, and waited for Matt Cassity to arrive back from his prior evening’s erotic sexploits. Eventually Matt returned and we went out for biscuits and gravy. The biscuits and gravy were ok, but there was some taste in there that I didn’t fully dig and it may have been that the cast-iron skillet in which they were cooked was not property seasoned. Whatever the case, I ate the whole thing without much problem and we returned to Sam’s place to lounge around watching television, playing video games, and drinking Bloody Mary’s with jalapenos in them. At some point Bethie became a bit perturbed by our consistent binge drinking and thought we would be too intoxicated for the wedding, but this turned out not to be a problem. Soon thereafter I ate a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and when I was done with my bowl we had a hell of a time getting some of that mush down into the garbage disposal.

Soon enough it was time to go to the wedding. We all got dressed in our fancy clothes and went to the place of the wedding. The wedding and reception were in this giant warehouse full of old architectural antiques. It was a pretty amazing place that reminded me of my Grandpa’s old garage, only much huger and with many more and fancier things to rummage about. The ceremony was short and sweet and then it was on to the reception where we all danced and drank the night away. I drank a rotation of Beefeater & Tonics along with Stella Artois and I pretty much danced the whole time and it was pretty clear that I was the best dancer. Eventually they stopped playing music and dancing and we had to go to another place where there was an even bigger dance party.

This other place was called “The Hideout” and it was this sort of sheddy/barn type thing packed full of Chicago hipsters. I was a bit overdressed for the scene and people took my appearance for being a square and kept asking me how I found out about such a cool place. I just told them that I was a high powered hedge fund manager and all I was looking for was some blow and some mouth sex and I heard this was the place to go. At another point I ran into some young lawyer types. We talked law for a while and then I attempted to put on a mock court session with them out on the patio. We managed a bit of shouting and some cross-examination, but in the end it was clear that nobody had a winning case. All in all it turned out to be quite the dance party. There were all types of music but my favorite was an old throwback dance to the song “Shout!” I went so low during this particular dance that I practically went all the way to China. Sometime around 4am the dancing ended and I was pissed because I wasn’t done drinking, but there was nothing I could do but go back to Sam’s house for bed. Unfortunately this proved more difficult than it should have been.

But that’s another story.

Bruce.

Bruce Springsteen is probably the greatest American musician ever created. I am listening to Bruce Springsteen right now and I am glad that I'm doing it. He sings about factories and jeans and memories and dreams and power automobiles and railroads and necking and youth and love and all these other big theme type things. He makes me want to be a better American when he says something like "strap your hands across my engines" or "he could throw that speed ball by you, make you look like a fool boy." I cannot imagine that countries like Pakistan have Bruce Springsteen equivalents and I think this is ultimately what makes America better than most countries in the world and if you don't think that America is better than most countries in the world then you are crazy. The thing is, if you were talking to Bruce Springsteen, and you told him that you didn't think that American is the best country in the world, he wouldn't punch you or anything like that. He would probably just talk to you about America and why he thinks its the best country in the world. Sure he would admit that America has some problems, but so does everywhere else. For example, at some grocery stores in American they've implemented these things so that if you take the shopping cart beyond the parking lot then the wheels will lock up and you can't move them anymore. Well, compare that to a place like Brazil where they have roving gangs of gasoline-huffing youths and our problems don't seem so bad. After discussing this Bruce would probably say something like, what are you doing to make America a better place and you probably wouldn't have much to say about this and that would be where he gets you really thinking.