Hard Times Cafe. Back in the day, I'd eat there two or three times every week. Now it's more like once every other week. Sadly, in Richmond, it will be once in a blue moon.
posted by Jeff @ 9:40 PM
1 comments
So as I move, one of my "purging of old things I'll never use again" was to open a 11 or 12 year old homebrew, that I made myself that long ago. It has been in the fridge ever since I made it, and I figured about 9 years ago it must have been poisonous.
I opened it carefully over the sink, to a disappointing lack of explosiveness, but a reasonable sigh of escaping carbonation. It had about a teaspoon of whitish sediment in the bottom. It poured nicely into glass, and still has that "large bubble" carbonation, although slightly moderated by age, that I didn't like when I made it. Not sure what causes this, but the best champagne I ever had displayed extraordinarily tiny bubbles, so there's something important here.
Anyway, back to the beer.
It tastes... OK!
It actually isn't a bad beer. I drank it about 8pm, and I'm not dead yet. If this is my last blog entry, you'll know what
posted by Jeff @ 10:50 PM
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When I move to Richmond (like, tomorrow, for all intents and purposes) these are the local businesses I'm going to miss most.
My all time favorite grocery store, and the place that has the best cheap wine in the US: Trader Joes. I really think I'm going to starve to death without them.
Cheap good pizza joint: Joe's Place Pizza and Pasta. Lunch buffet: $6.99 including unlimited refils on iced tea. It's not high cuisine, but it's all you can eat pretty good pizza at an unbeatable price.
Great Thai food for a bit less than ordinary Thai joints: Neisha Thai. The Lemon Ginger Iced Tea is the best non-alcoholic beverage ever invented.
Fast cable internet with good service: Cox Communications. Weird to say, but I've actually become somewhat fond of this local monopoly. They have treated me pretty well.
posted by Jeff @ 10:37 PM
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I went to Absolute Packaging, LLC, in Springfield, to buy boxes. They have great prices, and were extraordinarily helpful. I got 15 big boxes and 25 medium boxes, a cool tape gun and 220 yards of packing tape, and a roll of bubble wrap so big it wouldn't fit into my car. That alone makes the moving experience worthwhile.
posted by Jeff @ 8:37 PM
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I'm finally moving. After endlessly waiting for the place I first put in an application on (and a $400 deposit) to return my calls, I moved on a second, less expensive, place. That was Friday, and I have to be out of my old house by the end of the month, exactly 7 days later. Yikes!
My mother helpfully bought me a moving service, which costs around twice what just a moving truck does. Since so many of my friends have bad backs and busy schedules, and on this late notice there wasn't much help to be had, those three guys are well worth the extra cost. They'll be here Tuesday.
Now everything I own goes into boxes. That will be hard enough, but I have to buy the boxes too! Time to start making some phone calls, and visiting the back of the local supermarkets. I have a lot of stuff.
posted by Jeff @ 10:37 AM
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I'm sure half the men in the US with comb-overs didn't choose to do it, their crazy barber chose for them.
I went to a nearby Hair Cuttery yesterday to get trimmed up. I used to be particular and expensive in my choice of haircuts, but since I'm more skin than hair on top now I don't see the point any more. So I stroll in and am assigned to an older Asian woman whose name I can't pronounce and country of origin I can't guess. Using hand signs and grunts we negotiate what length she should be aiming for (pretty short) and she starts clipping away. One big difference between an expensive haircut and a cheap one: at Vidal Sassoon they don't use an electric clipper to do their work, they use actual scissors. Anyway, she gets mostly done but hasn't trimmed the sparse hairs surrounding my bald spot at all. She's smoothed them down as if trying to hide something. Who are you kidding? I've known for 20 years that combing a few hairs around won't fool anyone, and it looks ridiculous. So I point out that it's still too long on top, and she says she was trying to keep it long. Riiiight... After she trims some more in a sort of haphazard way, I bolt out of there. Back home I actually have to get out my own clippers and finish trimming the objectionably long hairs on top. What is wrong with the cosmetology industry? Can't they let men go bald with some dignity?
posted by Jeff @ 1:24 PM
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ruminate combine muse permute ponder rearrange mull shuffle excogitate exposit
About me. Why does every website on the planet want to know about me? Are you really interested?
PS, don't you think everyone's blog needs to have those little + and - signs to turn on and off different moods? If someone who normally blogs clear, intelligent, insightful posts suddenly feels the need to be maudlin, they can't do it without being "out of character". And some people might like to know what you're reading, while other people can't read. So I propose little buttons labeled things like "literary", "work", "happy", "pathetic", "left brain analytical", "right brain wacko", etc., that the viewer can click to turn on and off posts in those categories. Turn them all on, get a view of the person's whole life. Or turn on only your favorite aspect and get the lovely person you wish they really were.