Weekend!

46 thoughts on “Weekend!”

1. Drive up to NJ for White Castle. They are worth it. Its just 2-3 hours up I-95. Maryland is the South, not that people in The Real South accept it that way. But people from the South are often very up front about their, and obviously, your religion.Report

   1. I will be going up to White Castle the weekend of the 1st.

      I mean, New Jersey. A friend who used to live in Colorado moved there and it’ll be good to see him and his family for a weekend.

      He will be making me watch the first few episodes of Season One of Breaking Bad.

      If it’s not better than Quantum Leap, I don’t see the point, but he’s a good friend and it will be good to sleep in a house with cats again.Report

      1. I’m glad you are taking advantage of NJ’s culture. I do miss a little bit every now and then. Well i mostly miss really good diners and WC. NJ is better than its reputation.Report

      2. I *DID* also tell my friend that I wished to be taken to a “dinah”. We also plan on visiting the boardwalk until I say something like “we’re outside. What the hell?”Report

      3. Boardwalk= meh. But now i’m hungry for a really good sandwich followed by a massively rich cannoli. (good NJ diners always have killer rich deserts)Report

   2. Drive up to NJ for White Castle. They are worth it.

      Ugh. I wouldn’t drive around the block for White Castle.

      To do so would generate more gas in my lower gastrointestinal tract than I would burn.Report

      1. Me either. “Would you like some meat with those onions?”Report

2. They only sell liquor in Virginia in government owned and operated ABC stores. Beer and wine are sold just about anywhere and everywhere.

   Maryland is still a rather Southern culture, but without the discomfort of every third high school being named after some general who lost a war.Report

   1. I’m a wino, though. The thought of being able to pick up a claret whilst picking up my frozen pizzas warms my cockles.

      I intend to look for a place that might serve a half decent white gravy during my downtimes here. Without a decent white gravy, this place might as well be north of the mason-Dixon. New Hampshire, perhaps. Maine.Report

      1. There used to be a truck stop in Elkton with a kickin’ white gravy. I think the TA empire has subsumed them though.Report

      2. If a “wino” is someone who likes wine, you aren’t a far drive from Virginia wine country. Fun for a day trip or a nice overnight should ‘Bou make it out.

         Should you ever get into the district, I’ve got some bar and restaurant recs for you.Report

   2. Maybe on the Eastern Shore, but if you said that to a resident of Montgomery Country, assuming they understood your english, they’d be insulted.Report

3. Well, since I spent last weekend freaking out about Jaybird going away and about the tooth pain that led to an emergency root canal on Monday, this weekend will be spent Catching Up on all the homework and chores I didn’t do last week. Also having lunch with my retired friends (one of them is in her 80s) who want to hear all about NZ, buying a frame for a print we bought at work, and a family birthday. (I bought one of the nephews THREE different garbage trucks. He will no doubt be thrilled.) I really want to go see a play at my workplace but unless tomorrow is amazingly productive, I’m pretty sure I will end up doing homework instead.

   And, you know, Skyping with Jaybird. Obvs.Report

   1. You know what is unpleasant? Trying to sleep in a room that doesn’t smell right.Report

      1. White Castle and white gravy is NOT gonna help with that.Report

      2. Got something against White????Report

      3. It’s like the old sailors’ saying: “Too much White, stinky at night.”Report

      4. Poor honey.Report

   2. I bought one of the nephews THREE different garbage trucks

      I sure hope they are all extra noisy, because what else is the point of nephews or nieces?Report

      1. None of them are noisy. But one of them is lego (perfect for stepping on) and the other is playdoh(perfect for grinding into the carpet). So my in-laws should suffer sufficiently.Report

4. Have you found a Five Guys yet?

   You should find a Five Guys.Report

   1. Way before you find a White Castle.

      Also, bring Five Friends to help you eat the Fries. They give you a ridiculous amount.Report

      1. Yea. The “little” burger is a regular sized burger. The “regular” burger is a double patty. The “regular” fries are about a pounds worth. Don’t get the “large”.

         Also, rumor has it they use a special industrial grade mayo, because regular mayo apparently isn’t fatty enough for them.

         It’s not the best burger in the world, but it’s very good. And free toppings! It’s the kind of place you go if you want to hate yourself for a little while afterwards.Report

      2. Do you get the bacon on the regular? I do.

         I figure what the hell, at that point.

         It makes it AWESOME.

         (For some reason I don’t care for their pickles, though, which is unusual, because I am usually a pickle fiend).

         I keep wanting to switch it up and get like an A-1/Green Pepper/Grilled Onion one, but I never do for some reason.

         I ordered the large fries there once. It was a mistake. What, do I look like I brought a varsity basketball team in with me? The regular is enough for my whole family (in fact, we usually throw some away, or take them home).Report

      3. Heh- I’ve religiously been getting pretty much exactly that combo for 11 years now (I usually get jalepenos instead of greens, but close enough).

         As for the fries, the joke used to be that we had exactly five minutes after getting our food to drive around the corner, park, walk to the elevator, take the elevator 11 floors, and get to our apartment before the bag disintegrated from the grease.Report

      4. All right, that clinches it, I will switch it up next time. I made a jalapeno/bacon/pepper jack burger the other night that was awesome. I also do a mean one with goat cheese & roasted red peppers.Report

      5. Well, when I go to 5G, it is usually a “special occasion”. And by that, I mean “Kazzy wants to throw up.”

         So I usually get a regular with lettuce, tomato, raw onion, jalapenos, pickles, hot sauce, ketchup, and mustard (I may be forgetting something).

         Then I get a little bacon cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onion, and ketchup.

         Then I hate myself.Report

      6. It’s only a ridiculous amount if they bring it out in a wheelbarrow.
         (that’s from “The O”, a rather infamous Pittsburgh joint).Report

   2. Having once lived around the corner from the original in Alexandria, VA less than a decade ago, it’s really amazing to me to see how they’ve grown – I saw one on a business trip to Kansas recently.

      And Jaybird, I’m very sorry to hear that you’re mostly stuck on the North banks of the Potomac- there is no state I detest more than Maryland (and no state I appreciate more than Virginia).

      But what the hell are you doing obeying the posted limit in a parking garage? You’re on the east coast – those things are more like suggested minimums. (Actually, DC-area drivers are notoriously horrible – apparently, every state in the country is allowed to select its 10,000 worst drivers every year and have them exiled to the DC area).Report

   3. Kazzy, you’ve seen the Five Guys review song, right?Report

      1. I have not.Report

      2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcJFdCmN98sReport

      3. Oh… yes… that got much play with Zazzy and I. She loves the place even more than I do.Report

   4. We have one of those here in the Springs, actually.Report

5. Is “I’m blessed” religious? My friends are pretty left and secular but they used blessed all the time on facebook in a vague and spiritual kind of way. It sort of seems like shorthand for “lots of good stuff going on and I’m grateful and content”

   Saturday night I will be going to LitCrawl with some friends. Tomorrow night I will be hanging out with some other friends.Report

   1. I have always been a bit irked with “I’m blessed” or “have a blessed day.” It just strikes me as an obnoxious bit of signaling, and when it is done as such a routine thing, it loses its meaning. It is kind of like how, when most people ask “how are you?” they are not really asking the question. It is just the greeting ritual.Report

      1. “I’m Blessed”, in the parlance of my Dissipated Yout and Subsequent Periods of Reprobation, meant “I have smoked a sufficient quantity of weed to not need another hit.”Report

6. Sister-in-law is in town at the moment. Need to start preparing for my/our trip to Bal’mer and Jersey next week.

   One episode of Firefly left, plus the movie.

   More cleaning.Report

7. “I have been passed angrily in a parking garage for only going the posted 5 miles per hour. Dude: if you wanted to get here faster, you should have left the house earlier.”

   Hey, if you’d keep right and not drive in the middle of the lot, it wouldn’t be a problem. 🙂

   And watch out roads with multiple lanes than reduce down to less lanes. Folks love to race up the lane that’s ending to try and shove their ass into the lane that’s continuing…usually in front of you, regardless of space to do so. They think that if they have a blinker on that gives them right of way. The vehicle is usually a SUV, Prius, or BMW.Report

8. No White Castle.

   Hence,
   I’m blessed! Report

9. Tomorrow I am taking my son’s trumpet to be repaired and to buy him a larger mouthpiece. Then, we are hitting a Chinese buffet for lunch (his request). After that, grocery shopping.

   We also need to get a birthday card and a gift card for his friend who is a girl (though not a girlfriend), because he is going to her birthday party tomorrow night. Because it is October, the birthday party is going to be a costume party. He is going as one of the gas mask people from the Doctor Who episode “The Empty Child.” A show that he showed no interest in when I was watching it, but because the girl who is his friend likes it, it is now the greatest show ever. The joys of middle school crushes.Report

   1. Mommy?Report

10. Spending Saturday at the Air Force Academy observing the Falcon fencing tournament with the head of the bout committee. I have to pretend to be the bout committee for the Colorado tournament for Junior Olympics qualifiers next month, and need some experience.Report

    1. Learned an immense amount today. Kudos to the bout committee, who are absolute masters at imposing order on chaos. This particular (family) group has been polishing their skills for almost 20 years now. Interesting set of technology — they ran everything on three Microsoft Surface tablets (the proprietary software everyone uses to manage seeding, pools, and elimination brackets is Windows-only). Coordination between registration (at one place in the huge gym) and the bout committee’s raised platform (elsewhere) was done using a Google Docs spreadsheet.

       Also went by to see AFA’s infamous fencing training room. Wonderful facility: high ceilings, well-lit, hard maple floor, 18 strips marked in AFA blue, each strip with state-of-the-art electric scoring gear. But… any experienced fencer who steps into the room and glances at the strips immediately asks, “Why are all the on-guard lines in the wrong place?” The lines should be two meters from the center line; they’re only 1.5 meters. Sticks out like a sore thumb. The Academy decided to live with the mistake rather than strip the floor down to bare wood to fix it.Report

11. Coordination between registration (at one place in the huge gym) and the bout committee’s raised platform (elsewhere) was done using a Google Docs spreadsheet.

    Boo![T1]Report

12. We had Game Night on Saturday, where the centerpiece was an Arkham Horror game that ran for four hours and required the squad to close fifteen (!) gates.

    The nephew played via Skype, which worked tremendously well and makes me believe I can re-dragoon some of my former SoCal peepsters who play games like Arkham Horror but who don’t live here anymore and get a very big game going.

    I failed, again, to take sufficient notes to fictionalize the session, which is bothering me more every time we play now, so I’ll probably manage it next time.

    Today we played a few games of Settlers and Acquire and one Zombicide with Jack that we won too handily, and Kitty made breakfast from the official cookbook of Game of Thrones. We had breakfast from Meereen – spice-boiled eggs, “dog sausages” (Italian chicken, actually, I wasn’t about to butcher the pups for accuracy), figs and honey-lime sweet wine. The spice-boiled eggs were quite good. If you’re Facebook friends you can see pictures.Report

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