4:24 PM >> EdRib is Back



Rating >> 7.99. Out of what? Out of asparaguses. That's 7.99 asparaguses out of 10. That's pretty good.

Check out the official site of McDonald's McRib. Also see one man's attempt to uncover the mystery of the McRib by deconstructing the McRib. And then for those of you who just love the Filet 'o Fish like I do there too is an official site of McDonald's Filet 'o Fish.

9:31 AM >> Tacos and Turkey



ROAST DAY: 5/18/2007
PREP: Massaged with corn oil and applied a cracked peppercorn roasting rub.

MEALS:
M1 (6/18/2007) Bits and pieces here and there while carving.
M2 (6/19/2007) Late night snacking on a couple of pieces of turk.


Damian's Sin City Breakfast Tacos



Inspired by Real Buried Treasure's Father's Day Sin City Breakfast Tacos I got to creating my own. I had to slightly bypass the from-scratch tortillas. I took home some leftover tortillas from the mexican restaurant Mi Barrio, which I think where homemade in the back.

For the taco insides I used grilled veggies (red pepper, onion, zuchini, and portabella mushrooms) and eggs.

11:33 AM >> For the Ears

My god do I love music. To this day I average buying a CD almost every week. (If you like indie rock or underground hip-hop, you gotta check out eMusic.com. Best website ever. Even if you don't care, do whatever you can to get your hands on the song "Dead Dogs Two" by cLOUDDEAD.)

Driving home tonight, M asked if she could play her iPod. I agreed even thought this usually forces me to endure the most miserable driving experience ever. First she played a few random tracks from different artists that she liked, but then she seemed to settle on an album. After two point five songs, I decided I really liked this album that I had never heard before.

"What album is this?"
"The new one."
"Um, by who?" [or whom, whatever]
"Tori Amos."

I used to like Tori Amos a lot back at the end of high school and the beginning of college. Or at least I thought I did, but looking back it may have been a lie so that I'd have something to talk to girls about. I went to her concert in 1994, and I fell asleep halfway through, but I attribute that more to our pre-concert activities plus the fact that we couldn't buy beer once we went in. If you know what I mean. But I did get the coolest t-shirt I've ever owned from that concert. It said BITCHIN on the front.

8:14 AM >> Bank cards, college IDs, and other forms of identification

To those of you at dinner who made fun of the photo of me on my bank card here are some more pics for you to poke fun at. The collage is composed of various pictures of me from pieces of identification over the years. All are sans beard, except for the bird one which is kind of beard like cause it's fuzzy.





ROW 1: Georgia Southern student ID, Six Flags season pass (circa '91), UGA student ID.
ROW 2: 8th grade graduation, bank card, Eddy the Eagle.
ROW 3: Dekalb College student ID, Milton high school senior year playing card, Driver's license.

11:21 PM >> EURO2007 >> Tangent 1


So this something that just must be dealt with in its own post. I mean you all know how much I love pizza, and I finally get a chance to have authentic Italian pizza. (Is pizza even an Italian invention?)

When you go into the little shop to order, there are people standing behind a counter covered in gigantic, rectangular pizzas. You tell them which you want, and with their hands the people ask how much you want. (They also do that by speaking Italian.) Once you've managed to convey how much you want, they use scissors to cut your slice! How cool is that. Finally, the slice is weighed, and you pay based on the weight.

So halfway between the Trevi Fountain and my assault on The Vatican, we stop for lunch (and for me to figure out how to address my wounds). Despite all my bravado, when we get into the pizza place, I chicken out and order a sandwich (also on the counter, also cut with scissors, also weighed, also quite good), but fortunately for me, Meredith got a couple pieces of the sweet pizza you see above.

She was not able to handle both pieces, so I got to polish off half of the above bad boy. It had real bacon, some sort of Italian ham (not prosciutto), roasted red peppers, and some weird mushroom or eggplant-type thing. That description does not do the slice any justice; it tasted like no pizza you'd ever get in the States, not even at Papa Johns. It was like eating three pieces of pizza smushed together and mixed with an anti-pasta appetizer.

I want another.

9:46 PM >> OKRA CANDY

I LOVE OKRA. IT IS MY NEW FAVORITE CANDY. LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. >>

11:21 PM >> Aaaaaaaaaaaand we're back!

So after a prolonged period of technical issues and lack of disposable time and sporadic lethargy, I am back to finish writing up my and the Wifey's trip to Europe in April.

[You can all exhale now.]

9:08 PM >> EURO2007 >> Monday, April 2

Day 2, or "I'm falling apart already." Rome, IT

Our first full day in Europe. HURRAH, the Kloths have landed. Unfortunately, Corp. Kloth had bought all new, tiny-little, below-the-ankle socks from Old Navy before the trip. So of course this very first day, we had barely made it to the Trevi Fountain (that's it to the right) before I had blisters forming on both of my Achilles tendons. How poetic. I mean other than the fact that Achilles was Greek, not Roman. So began my quest to find moleskin in Europe.

There were birds all over Rome. This is a seagull because they even have palm trees there. Rome was so crowded that today a pigeon flew into my face. But he recovered and sped off to Vatican City. This was after we had returned from The Vatican ourselves, where we had gone to see the Sistine Chapel. On the way there I accidentally broke into The Vatican. I turned down a street that went through a gate that I thought would take me to the Sistine Chapel. 30 feet later I was stopped by a member of the Swiss Guard. "May I help you?" "I'm going to the Sistine Chapel." "No--go back out, turn left, and get in the line."

So it turned out you have to go through the entire Vatican Museum before you get to see the SC. That kind of ruins the experience because by the time you get to the SC, you've seen so many f-ing biblical paintings that the wonder of seeing a painting of Christian God is lost. (It also doesn't help if you're an Atheist to begin with.) There were some cool paintings of Jesus that were done totally Nine Inch Nails style, which I just now realized is super-ironic.

I had an actual, for-real phobia of dogs until we got our puppy three years ago. But Meredith is never scared of any animals.

The SC is pretty cool. It would be much more breathtaking if there weren't 350 other people in there talking (it is quite echoey in there) and taking photos of the ceiling even though you're not allowed. But it still was really neat to see the brain as well as the kidney, and I even think I saw some lungs up there. But the coolest part was that from a distance, you couldn't tell where the ceiling ended and the walls began.

Almost as soon as we left the SC, I was run down from behind by a dude on a bike. Seriously--we were on a super-crowded sidewalk, of course (it was even spilling into the street), and I had the International "Bike Approaching!" Warning (a jingle of a bell), but before I had time to make another move, I felt like a giant slug was trying to crawl up my leg but was too heavy so instead just pushed me down. I turned around to see a wild-eyed old man with a nice Doc-style haircut running me over. I managed to escape, but I had to walk around the rest of Europe with a stain on my jeans.

After my run-down we stopped at an Irish pub for beers and a plate of meat and cheeses (How I love Europe!!), so we were full early, but we got reservations at some "American style" restaurant because M already missed American food. They served cheeseburgers, which M got, and let me just say, a cheeseburger in Italy pretty much sucks. I had lamb, which rocked. (We still didn't know how to order.) Then we went down to a bar area and felt like we were back home and in college, which was weird.

The coolest thing I saw all day were these ancient maps on display in the Vatican Museum that were so old there was nothing drawn for the Western side of North America, and even Africa wasn't drawn quite right. Just looking at them and seeing concrete proof that there was a time when people didn't know exactly what the world looked like was amazing. Mind Melt 93.4%

11:12 AM >> The 9lb. Ham Project 2K7 - Update E.1

For official the ham project is complete. The last frozen bit of Kind of Like Ham Tetrazzini made two meals. Compared to the 2006 turkey project the ham project produced 10 more meals. Project was a total success. I learned a lot from it. I'm stronger. I'm wiser.



M31 >> (5/28/2007) Kind of Like Ham Tetrazzini (frozen) (pt. C2). Served with an unfrozen portion of Onion Carrot Cornbread.

M32 >> (5/31/2007) The Last Ham Supper -- Kind of Like Ham Tetrazzini (frozen) (pt. C3). Served with an unfrozen portion of Onion Carrot Cornbread and some cucumbers.