Photo Friday

Mark is out on the town in Chicago.

Mark with one of his old friends at Circuit in Chicago.

Video Thursday

We're on our way to Chicago. This is how I envision our trip.
The part of Mark is played by John Candy. 
Alan is played by Steve Martin.

And The First Runner Up Is.........

Okay, truth in blogging. I have had three beers, two vodkas, and it's Sunday evening, early. I am also right now working on a little snifter of Kahlua. What’s more, I’m writing this post early because on Wednesday I will be quite busy getting ready for our trip to Chicago. I hope the story is coherent.

If you remember, a while ago Mark entered a chili cook-off at a local bar. He lost. The chili cook-off was phase one of a greater cook-off involving a rib cook-off, and a wings cook-off. The bar, Sidelines in Wilton Manors, recognizing a truly gifted chef, decided that despite losing, Mark’s chili deserved a second chance. So this past weekend Mark threw himself into recreating his losing chili for Sunday’s grand finale.

The last time Mark had entered the contest he depended on me to tell him if his chili was good. Honestly, I loved it. Unfortunately for Mark I have a very fragile palate when it comes to spices. Paprika will burn a hole in my stomach. So this time around after Mark fed me a few spoonfuls of his chili, and I pronounced it to be the most fantastic shit I had ever eaten, Mark dumped a pile of minced jalapenos into the pot. This apparently did the trick. Mark came in second. Now it might seem like a bad thing to come in second, but he was competing with other genres of bar food. They had ribs, chicken wings, and chili all competing head to head with each other, and lets face it, ribs trump chili.

So while the judges were tasting and voting on the best food entered in the contest, I was killing time at the bar. Damn they took their time about it. Exactly three beers, and two vodkas of time. So what about the Kahlua that I’m working on now you ask? That’s what Mark won. A lovely basket of vodka, Kahlua, whiskey, and a bottle of ‘table wine’, whatever the hell that is. Oh, and they also threw in a five pound bag of peanuts. I'm very happy that Mark won something, and not just because it was a basket full of liquor.
I'm getting sleepy now. I think I'll go take a nap, even though Sixty Minutes isn’t even on yet.

The Nearly Rotten Store

How exciting, Mark has made another shopping trip to the Nearly Rotten Store. I'm not sure if that's the real name of the place, but that's what I call it. The Nearly Rotten Store is a farm stand where Mark picks up cheap produce. Calling it a farm stand is a stretch because the produce in the place hasn't been near a farm for over a month. The cherries that Mark has brought home, while appearing to be luscious, deep red, and ripe, are an illusion. When you bite into them they are mealy and sour. The grapes are no better, soft and squishy, with the flavor of a bums armpit. At least the bananas are ripe and sweet, the only problem is, if I don't eat the entire dozen today, by tomorrow morning they'll be nothing more than a brown pile of goo.

This is one of Mark's biggest failings, shopping for bargains that aren't really bargains. I've explained over and over to him that if you buy the nearly rotten produce, you don't really save because I end up throwing most of it away. This goes right along with his other habit of bringing home utterly useless crap, that we would, and could, never use.
"But it was fifty percent off. I only spent twenty dollars on it.", is the common story. The fact that he could have saved twenty dollars more if he didn't buy the talking toilet paper roll in the first place just doesn't sink in.

I'm sure there are hungry people around the world who would love to have all the rotten produce sitting in our kitchen. I wish they could all come by today and dig in, help themselves to the cherries, grapes, and bananas. In fact, right now, there are five quarts of blackberries sitting in there that need to be eaten before they turn into compost. I will try to eat as much of this stuff as I can, I hate to waste it. Besides, I've found that there is an added benefit to eating overly ripe produce. It keeps me very regular.

Overheated, Overcharged

As our impending road trip to Chicago draws closer I am filled with foreboding. If the hour Mark and I spent together this morning is any indication, things are going to be rough. It started when I told Mark that we needed to go to the Home Depot and get keys made for the pet sitters. That little trip soon ballooned into a stop at the butcher, and a visit to a friend's house in Hollywood. One minute into the trip Mark points out that, "The brakes are making a squealing noise."
"Really? I thought that was you.", I wise cracked back.

I turned down the radio and listened.
'Squeeeeeeeeealllllllll', It was definitely making a noise, except it wasn't the brakes.
"That's a belt, probably the one that goes to the alternator."
"What's an alternator?"
"Doesn't matter, when did this start?"
"Two days ago."
As the odor of coolant filled the car, and steam billowed from under the hood, I instructed Mark to drive to the mechanic immediately.

After dropping the car off, we walked over to the supermarket to pick up some lunch. While Mark ordered a sandwich at the deli counter, I wandered over to a display of wine on sale for $4.49. Cheap chardonnay, my favorite (the cheap part, not the chardonnay part), so I grabbed one. The only problem was when I got to the checkout, the cashier rang it up at $5.99. Word for word, this is what happened.

Me, "No, that's the wrong price."
Cashier, "Gibberish, blah, blah, blah."
Me, "What?"
Cashier, "Gibberish, blah, blah, blah."
Me, "Are you speaking English?"
That last comment was followed by a very nasty stare from the cashier, so I told her to just take the wine off the order. Meanwhile, Mark had scampered off into the bowels of the store as I shouted across the checkout lines for him to come back.
"Mark, Mark, Mark,!"
But he just kept going. I paid for the sandwich minus the wine, and then went outside to wait for him. When he finally came out of the store, he drops a dollar fifty into my hand.
"What's this?"
"I got the manager to give you back the overcharge for the wine."
"But I didn't get the wine. I had her take it off the bill."

I probably should have returned the money, but no, Mark shoved it back in his pocket and we walked off across the parking lot. We'll just call it a translation surcharge.

Photo Friday

Nasty weather this morning.

But by this evening it all looked like this.

Video Thursday

They want to tear down the hippie church on the corner, and build a large, five story gay party resort in our residential neighborhood. I'm all for a gay bar within stumbling distance of my home. But a huge noisy resort? No thanks.