Tag: Reviews

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Too Livery

Summer left this morning while I started on some laundry. I ended up having to dry my pants twice because I forgot to clean the lint trap after washing my new set of towels, but at least my house didn’t burn down. We both finished chores in time to get some lunch before the girls got home, so we decided to try a new place in town called Sam’s Southern Eatery. Evidently it’s a pretty good sized chain, so maybe they’ll last a little while in that location.

The food was really good and consistent, so it made sense learning that it wasn’t just some new local startup. The prices were high, but they weren’t too shy with the portions today. I had a feeling that wasn’t normal for the menu items we ordered, but it made it a worthwhile visit for us today. Summer had plenty of fried liver left over, and even I didn’t finish my fish and crab cakes.

It was drizzly all afternoon, so we headed back to her house for the evening and waited for the girls. They started chores when they got home, and I put on The Matrix Reloaded, which took us the rest of the evening to finish.

Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d’enculé de ta mère. It’s like wiping your ass with silk. I love it.

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Just a Little Trim

I woke up to my alarm this morning and rolled over, fully knowing that I was about to fall back asleep. I woke up again right around the time I normally get up if I’m at home, so I was in a rush the rest of the morning. Work was pretty quiet again, and parent-teacher conferences had class out an hour early, though we didn’t get to participate in that. I just kept busy until lunch.

Allen agreed to Steak ‘n Shake since neither of us had been there in a really long time. I had seriously never had even decent service at this restaurant, and they’ve always been extremely slow in every single aspect, so I new it was a risk. The service wasn’t any friendlier today, but our food was hot, fresh, relatively cheap, and came out in record time. Overall we were very happy with our decision.

After lunch, I spent a while messing with the sound system in the crimson room again. I didn’t have the cable I needed to test, but after remembering I had an XLR-accepting amplifier in my office, I tested the equipment and traced the problem back to their amplifier. Fortunately it was just loose or completely disconnected cables from the back where someone had shuffled things around haphazardly.

When I got home, I had several deliveries to bring inside. I didn’t get to play much though, because I had to trim some plants for trading with the local girl I found on Reddit. In the end it turned out for naught, and she put off the trade until Wednesday, but at least I’m prepared now. I spent a little while setting up a Chromecast Audio in the bedroom with my new optical cable, then jammed while I cleaned up a little before bed.

Put it outta yo mind!

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Plant Proteins

Today was warm enough to take the bike in to work, but it was supposed to rain in the afternoon. I never heard from anyone all day, so I just stuck to myself and worked on things in my office. My morning was fueled by Soylent, but I wasn’t going to miss out on a free Beyond Burger from Hardee’s, so I left for a super late lunch at the end of the school day.

I hate to be at all disparaging toward the employees at our only remaining Hardee’s, because they’ve never been anything but kind. I just can’t shake the feeling that they all arrived for their shifts on the same bus from their community care center. They do manage to get the food out, and my burger was actually put together quite nicely today. The fries were cold though, and every interaction I observed felt really…unpolished? I’m absolutely for the employment of people with special needs; work just wouldn’t be the same without Allen. I’m just suggesting that maybe one of the staff on duty at any given time should be a better trained and better compensated employee. I really think that would raise the bar and maybe help fill some seats. I’d hate to lose the restaurant due to poor ownership.

The afternoon went by super quickly after having such a late lunch. I tried stopping at Walgreens for my blood pressure medication on the way back, but the line was both long and immotile and I had to get back to work. When I left work, I went by my parents’ house to visit while I waited for the girls to be ready to go home. They ate with their grandparents while Summer was away for a work meeting in Little Rock, so I picked at some of what my parents had out. Once the girls were ready, I fetched them, made another stop at Walgreens, then went by my house to change before taking them home.

The evening flew by as the girls begrudgingly took care of their chores. Summer eventually made it home, and it was off to bed with everyone.

If you close your eyes, it’s like you’re eating a real, overcooked hamburger.

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Meeting the New Doctor

I had to go in for my 6-month checkup today, and my old nurse Stephanie had left some time ago. They actually scheduled me with Doctor Carter, whom I’d never once met. I got to sleep in a little, then went straight to the clinic where they got me back behind the door in record time. I still had to wait a while for the doctor to see me, and once he got there he basically went on a 20-minute rant about how I can’t eat starchy, fried foods. Both times in my life that I’ve had to meet a new primary care physician, that’s all I get. This time was probably the worst with assumptions about the kind of diet I have. Just tell me to exercise and move on with it.

When I finished up with that mandatory meeting, I went to Superfast for an oil change and to convince Summer to go to lunch with me before I had to go to work. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had left my car idling in line for a while, but after the oil change I had to get a jump start to get moving again. We stowed my car in the back bay for a charge, then took hers to Denny’s for a couple free Beyond Burgers.

Steven and his coworker were there for lunch as well, and they seemed to be having a better time. Summer seemed genuinely surprised that our service was horrible, but I’ve only very rarely had a good experience there. The food is always fine, but it’s always incredibly slow. It took us half an hour to get our drinks, and mine wasn’t even what I ordered. Our waitress actually brought them out with our food, so we just scarfed everything down at once. The burger was decent, but they were definitely disguising it with a fancy bun. The bun was great, but it was about three times the size of the burger patty. The patty itself tasted okay, but was a bit too tender.

With lunch out of the way, we headed back to the shop so I could go to work. Alex evidently tightened my battery terminal, so I didn’t have any trouble the rest of the day. I went by a nearly empty shop for a little while, then went to the high school and spent a good hour walking back and forth, getting in my steps, to work on the sign. I still couldn’t get the radio to talk, so I gave up again. The rest of the afternoon went by super fast as I did mostly things for which I did not have a proper work order.

After work, I went home to change and then ran by Superfast again for a tire rotation. Then I went to AutoZone to have them check my battery. I thought Alex had just adjusted the charger earlier in the day, but Summer said he actually moved the connector down the terminal, so the tester at AutoZone read my battery as low, but healthy.

By the time I finished there, Summer was on her way home with the girls. I stopped by Dollar General to kill a little time and ended up buying a rake. I joked with the cashier that this is why I’m normally not allowed out of the house. Then we had huge salads for dinner and watched The Matrix Revolutions.

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

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I’m not kidding! Why do they always think I’m kidding???

The middle school started ACT Aspire testing this morning, and I drew the short stick. I burned the entire morning sitting in Sara’s office, and only got called out twice – both times to unlock a door in the counselors’ room because someone forgot their key. At one point, Robin brought the counselors to talk to me about trying to get their campus to a 1:1 device ratio so they could test all the kids at once. I vehemently replied that we should instead be reducing the device count, and that testing everyone at once is a very bad idea. I’m still surprised when people are shocked to hear me say as much.

Nobody wanted to join me at Ruby Tuesday for another $5 salad bar, so I went by myself and just sat at the bar. It was a quick and quiet lunch, but not inside my head. A group of employees were mingling at the other end of the bar talking mad trash about how people had been coming in all day asking for John. John’s served my tables many times in the past. He is far and away one of the best servers I’ve ever had at any restaurant. He’s always courteous, professional, prompt, and most importantly conscious of what’s happening at the table. Even today, he stopped by to say hello, commenting that I wasn’t with my usual posse. Never once has he even suggested that we should ask for him by name, and I honestly don’t feel like that has anything to do with why people do so. If any of those employees spent half as much time hustling as leaning, maybe they’d have eager repeat customers.

After lunch, Allen drove me out to London so I could show him that he didn’t properly re-enroll a Chromebox after powerwashing it. I figured I had already burned half a day, so I might as well get a trip out of it. When we got back, I spent a little time at the shop before heading to the high school. I got a very little bit done. My Adobe form was printing unpredictably.

My evening flew by as usual. I went home for a little while before going to Walmart for some things. I needed cat food, and wanted to peruse for a while without someone nagging about it. It’s funny, because I used to always want someone to go with me, but oftentimes now it’s more peaceful just to go alone at my own pace. I picked up some cold fried chicken on a whim in case anyone was hungry, and headed up to Summer’s.

We ended the evening with some more Glee. There’s just something about that show that completely sucks me in emotionally.

So blame it on my ADD, baby.

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The Finale of Skywalker

We got up this morning and watched The Last Jedi while snacking on leftovers. I took a shower while Summer and Eaddie went to the gym, and then we left for Conway to see the final episode of this new trilogy.

We had a bit of time to kill, so we walked through Dollar Tree for a little while before walking to the theater. Autumn didn’t seem to have any trouble on her crutches for that little distance, so hopefully she doesn’t fuss too much about being back at school. I enjoyed the movie, and though a ton of it seemed like fan service, I felt like it did a pretty good job of wrapping up this new trilogy. I would have liked to see the new characters developed a bit better, but I guess we have the wasted second episode to blame for that.

It was dark by the time we got out of the theater, so we headed straight back home. I dropped the girls off and went home for the night so I could get ready for work again in the morning.

It hardly seems fair – I’d only just forgotten the sound of my alarm.

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No One Mourns the Wicked

I slept in a little later than I meant to this morning. I had to wake Eaddie up to get her to her friend’s house, and then I stopped by the post office to return my first Fossil watch on the way home. I had a lunch date with Brandon, so I headed home to shower and then met him at Linh. He had come down to visit after moving again to Seattle, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

As soon as we finished, I headed home to change, then picked Summer up to head to Conway. I had a bunch of Kohl’s Cash to burn, and then we continued to Little Rock to meet Julie and my parents for dinner. They decided on Samantha’s Tap Room, and boy was I unimpressed. It felt like high prices and fine dining portions, but almost everyone’s food was overcooked and dry or tough. Our waitress was nice enough, but nobody wanted to send anything back. Having to pay for sides à la carte just added insult to injury. I felt like they just grabbed bottles of “Asian” sauce and used it wherever they could to seem worldly. I would have had to stop by a Wendy’s afterward if I hadn’t gotten some hunks of steak from Mom and Julie after I finished my lamb “lollipops.”

We all took Mom’s car to the Robinson Center for the show, and made it inside with plenty of time to spare. Julie had gotten us all tickets to see Wicked, which I’d wanted to see several years ago, but with little priority. It was an incredible story, though it was difficult for me to understand well over half of the words being sung. I was familiar enough that it didn’t have a huge impact on my enjoyment, but Mom apparently fell asleep during the first act. The intermission didn’t seem particularly necessary, but seemed nice anyhow. The set changes were awesome to see live, but I wished I had binoculars in spite of our relatively close seating.

After the show, it took us forever to get out of the parking garage. It seemed like they just cleared out everybody in front of us before we could leave. Once back to my car, Summer and I headed home, making one quick stop at the Conway Rally’s for some fries to fill my completely unsatisfied belly.

Like a ship blown from its mooring.

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The Dark and Twisted World of Lace

Autumn got up this morning and immediately abandoned ship to stay with her grandparents. I got out of bed and munched on some leftover breakfast and watched some YouTube while Summer dropped her off and hit the gym. When she got back, Eaddie wanted to go shopping, so I went home to clean up and met them at Shoe Carnival. They had already been to a couple other stores, and this was their last stop. I picked up a couple new pairs of shoes for myself, and then I let Eaddie pick Zaxby’s for dinner.

We decided to stay at my house and start on The Mandalorian, so we picked up some things for them and headed home for the night. Just as we started the show, Allen called and asked if I wanted some bananas. He had just left church, and they were giving them away. I remembered seeing Walmart’s barren banana shelf a couple days prior, so I guess now I know where they all went. He and Charlotte stopped by and gave me an entire case of them. It was literally and figuratively bananas. They visited for just a minute before leaving, and we continued with the first two episodes.

I found myself completely unable to suspend my belief, even for this beloved sci-fi fantasy franchise. We were introduced to a character, told immediately and without any ambiguity that he was a badass, and then followed him on a journey of hijinks and near-comical level of close calls. Then he proceeded to wander across the planet on foot, followed by a floating crib, where he was previously told it would be inaccessible without taming and riding, like a Disney princess, on the 3D render of a kindergartner’s drawing of a T. rex. We knew he wasn’t the only one after this extremely high-level target, yet it floated around behind him completely open to any wandering eyes, as though he was inviting additional antics from any would-be antagonists. The music initially gave me a nice space-western vibe, but then filled in with too much horn. My favorite part of the whole series was the episode-specific art slideshow that played behind the credits. Of course I’ll watch the rest of the series, but like The Last Jedi, I was left utterly disappointed and found myself caring less about the franchise.

Summer had to work again the next day, so they called it a night. I stayed up a bit longer, surfing the dark underbelly of the internet and following a rabbit hole of the boat shoe cult and their traditional leather shoelace knots.

Mando? More like Mango. Except mangos are delicious.

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Chili Fingers

I froze all day long, with my office blowing nothing but cold air at me. I spent almost the entire day sifting through verbose log files to try and fix the same Chrome issue that I’m sure ultimately doesn’t matter because it’s an old computer on an old 32-bit version of Windows 7, but I wanted to try anyway. An hour or so in, I was surprised with a lockdown drill, so for the first time I actually had to participate. Just as I got up to lock the door, a girl peeked in my window and needed a place to hide, so I let her in and we sat in the dark together for the next 15 minutes until they gave the all-clear.

I finally took a break to grab my new Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle that was delivered, and headed to the shop for lunch. Allen and Gary wanted Kob Jai, and against what every experience I’ve ever had there, I decided to give it another shot. They got grilled chicken, which was really just two boneless, skinless chicken breasts charred until black on the outside and served with a container of sticky rice and an egg roll or two. It was simply the most underwhelming looking plate I could imagine anyone serving, but the chicken looked good for those that like it cooked just a step above jerky. I had the pad thai again, this time with “all the stars,” and the noodles were super tough and chewy. There was very little chicken, especially compared to what appeared to be four breasts sitting across the table from me. It tasted alright I guess, but overall I should really commit to never going there again.

When we got back to the shop, I spent quite a while setting up my new watch with Gary. The first big update caused the watch to run super poorly while also absolutely nuking the battery. I got it up to 100% while setting it up, and then after failing the first update attempt, it dropped down below 60% within just a few minutes. A restart and re-download of the same update later, it did finally succeed and ran smooth as butter.

I wrapped up the day working on the same stuff I’d wasted all morning on, and headed home in the freezing cold. I got some gas, then ran the dollar menu gauntlet for some Wendy’s nuggets and McDonald’s fries because I was super hungry after only eating half of my lunch plate. I finished them along with my leftovers for lunch, then bundled up the best I could for a cold night at home. Jack came on and we played a little Overwatch before bed.

Hands like ice.

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Super Ridgewood Bros.

I couldn’t sleep in this morning for all the light pouring into the house. Summer had to work, so it was just the girls and me all morning. Eaddie came out and played some Mario Kart and Ultimate Alliance 3 with me for a bit. Eventually I headed home to clean up, then went to pick up some food from Grant and Robert. Evidently Felix helps out there occasionally as well, and then Ray stopped in and chatted with me for a bit while I waited. Grant came around and handed me a big sack of meat that I took to the shop for Summer, along with some rolls and chips from the Neighborhood Market. The ribs were thick and meaty, and some of the best we’d ever had. At first I thought the sauce was a bit overpowered by apple cider vinegar, but it really grew on me as I continued eating.

Once we were stuffed from that, I finally stopped by Walgreens to fill my prescription. Then I headed home to try out Destiny 2 on Stadia. The game ran great, and though I absolutely despised playing it on a controller, I felt like it helped the input latency feel less significant. Overall I was very impressed with how well it ran, and also pretty overwhelmed by the unnecessarily complicated nature of the game. Hopefully Stadia will be great for some racing games though.

After a while I got really cold in the house, so I decided to warm things up by doing a little cleaning. I got all the dishes done and cleaned up a bit of space in the kitchen before Summer got here. The girls spent the night with their father since the Splash company Thanksgiving event happens tomorrow evening, and we can have a good day in Little Rock until then. Once she did get here, I showed her a bit of Stadia and how much anxiety I have about how much is going on in that game. We were going to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor, but ended up watching a few Tesla videos instead until we were both too tired to stay up any longer.

I’m actually only feeding two, but one of them is me!