As we near the half-way point of February it’s dawned on me that there is a good possibility that I will not accomplish anything I desire to accomplish this month.
Have You Heard This? The Economy Sucks!
I know that this comes as shocking news to most of you, but the economy officially sucks.
On my drive in this morning I noticed that the wine bar The Grape on Highland has closed. I am a bit bummed because there was a photo opportunity I wanted to shoot there, but never made the time to do so. If a place selling wine can’t stay in business in this economy, what hope have we?
$167? Man, That’s Cold.
So much for “setting the thermostat low, bundling up, and using a small electric space heater” in order to keep my natural gas bill down. The bad news arrived in the electronic post this morning, my bill for January was $167. Dammit!
I suppose it could have been much worse, but I really thought that all of my suffering in January was going to pay dividends.
ITP Flickr Pick
The sight of a Turtle’s logo still present on a sign on the campus of Avondale High School humored me greatly.
How many of you remember Turtle’s? How many of you pasted those S&H Green Stamp like Turtle’s stamps into booklets? Hell, how many of you remember S&H Green Stamps?
Top Chef: And The Winner And Loser Are zzzzzzzz
I really don’t know how this continues to happen to me. Last night I got home in time to watch the 11pm airing of Top Chef. With laptop in lap I intently watched the first fifty-five minutes of the episode (except for what seemed to be forty minutes of commercials and other Bravo promo spots) and then it happened. I fell asleep. I fell asleep for about seven minutes, because when I awoke Bravo was running Top Chef again from the start. I completely missed the part where a winner was declared and the loser was asked to pack his/her knives and go.
For the QuickFire Challenge the cheftestants were required to do some breakfast molecular gastronomy because the guest chef was Wylie Dufresne (note to self: Get your ass to NYC and go spend a lot of money at wd-50). Oddly, the only cheftestant not to do molecular gastronomy, that would be Carla, won the event with her take on green eggs and ham.
Have you read the book “My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals / Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes”? Last night’s Elimination Challenge was based on this. Each cheftestant had to recreate the “last supper” for some of the living heaviest hitters in the culinary world. During the challenge we see that Fabio breaks a finger. Holy crap, I’d be off the show in a heartbeat if that happened to me. There were some clear likes and dislikes in the challenge. Even with the broken finger Fabio rose to the top along with Carla, who seems to be getting stronger with each episode. Leah, Hosea, and surprise surprise Stefan were at the bottom of the pile.
As I’ve come to find out Fabio won the night and Leah was asked to pack up her fucking knives and go.]
btw – If you are a big Top Chef fan like me you might enjoy Television Without Pity’s “Top Chef Season 5 Misfires”.
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – feeling a bit empty today
Current Music – Spoon — (soon to be bankrupt) Sirius/XM channel 26, playing “I Summon You”
Website Of The Day – Could it be true? This Is Why You’re Fat
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Monthly
Foot Mileage – 0 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 12 (12)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 10
Marta Rides – 0
February Goals
– Complete all necessary work on my bed room
– Lose no fewer than one pound
– Run no fewer than 30 miles
– Completely read Softbox Lighting Techniques for Professional Photographers, and Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas
2009 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 190 pounds (today’s weight was 199.5 pounds)
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
РEarn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalape̱o Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in Objective-C (iPhone development) and Ruby on Rails (Black Sheep web page concept)
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
My gas bill was > $110 last month and my electric was high also, @ $70 (which I can only blame on having the space heater on all the time). It was just damn cold last month.
I guess adding insulation to the house needs to go on the to do list as well, I know there isn’t enough in the attic and none under the house or in the walls. FWIW…The electrican never showed this week, so I need to try again. I’m trying to give people money, in this crummy economy and they wont take it!
So what do you need to do in the bedroom…as far as work goes, I don’t want to know anymore than that 😉
Well, since you asked…. 😛
The bedroom tasks are as follows
– clean completely, including under the bed.
– go through clothing and pitch all items which either do not fit (or would not fit even if lost twenty pounds), are way out of fashion, or haven’t been worn in a relatively recent time frame.
– either fix the light fixture of my ceiling fan or replace the ceiling fan with a new one.
– clean out the desk in my bedroom pitching all items which are no longer relevant in my life.
– hang the mirror I bought five years ago, or if that’s not possible get rid of the mirror.
I live right by The Grape and NEVER saw more than a handful of people eating there. The economy might be a factor but also think it was too expensive for the neighborhood. The only restaurants on that strip that seem to be doing well are Parrish and the Inman Perk coffee shop. Maybe my ‘hood needs to have a go out to eat campaign 🙂
Tee hee the Turtles sign brought back lots of memories including sitting outside of the one at Chamblee Plaza trying to get Rick Springfield concert tix!
@Beth: I’m surprised that The Grape there didn’t do smashing business. It was the only wine bar around and I would assume the people buying the nearby condos and the people eating at Soto Soto / Fritti were their target audience.
Yep — fond memories of the Turtle’s booklets. I bought some really tasteful cassette tapes with mine. Bad Animals by Heart and the “cassingle” for “What I Like About You” by Michael Morales. I was a portrait of elegant taste in 1989.
You were buying that music in 1989? What and advanced nine-year-old you were. 🙂
Well, it was overpriced wine. The original grape in Vinings was pretty cool, but when they went all corporate and started franchising it became rather lame.