Just Another Waste of Space

Alright, I think I may have mentioned Mimi’s before when I went with Kadie but I feel I must mention yet again my awesome visit to this great place.

After really craving some Fazolli’s, not being able to find my wallet, then finally finding my wallet Adam and I took off to Knoxville for food.  Instead of going to Fazolli’s we went to Mimi’s Cafe in Turkey Creek and I’m pretty sure I can speak for Adam when I say we made a good choice.

The first thing we saw when we entered around 9PM was a huge plate of all the deserts they have… and man they all looked amazing.  We were seated by the manager who then sent the server to us.  Our server was very friendly and gave great suggestions for starters, main course, and dessert.

Since last night was the end of Mimi’s “Seasonal” menu Adam and I both decided to get the Lamb Shank and a starter of Fried Pickles.  The pickles are pretty much what you would expect, breaded slices of dill pickle that was dropped in a fryer with some ranch and thousand island dressing for dip.  The lamb was sooo yummy and just fell right off the bone it was beyond amazing.  It did come with broiled asparagus which wasn’t bad, but it is asparagus which I don’t really like so I tossed mine over to Adam.

At the end of our meal we had to give in and get some dessert (it was yummy when I went with Kadie so I really couldn’t turn it away this time).  Instead of getting the “Trio” dessert I got the full brownie and Adam had the Bread Pudding.  As you can see from the picture above the brownie is HUGE!  I actually couldn’t eat all of it and took half of it home to eat (as I’m writing this even).

As if that wasn’t a great visit the Manager came over to our table and gave us 4 rather large muffins to try out and suggested we visit more often.  We actually got the first muffin from the new “Seasonal” batch that starts today!

Oh, as a side note: Mimi’s Closes at 10PM on Wed and we were there well after close (I think it was about 10:30 when we left)  So we were those guys and they still gave us great service and let us leave with some extra awesome treats.

So a quick Merry Christmas to everyone (though it’s a bit late).   I got to spend my Christmas at my Mom’s with her boyfriend, my sister and my brother in law.  We had a pretty good time, the typical talking, eating, watching movies, opening of gifts visit you would expect from a family visit on Christmas.

One of my gifts was a Panini Grill, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit.  I’ve made a few sandwiches pictured above because well.. I was excited.  It’s super easy to use and clean and makes amazingly yummy food.  With a quick warm up time of a minute I’m able to plug it in, make my sandwich, and toss it on the grill.  Close the lid and come back in about 2 minutes to a nice grilled sandwich.

If you guys eat panini’s or have any ideas for some stuffings leave me some comments and I’ll try ‘em out.

My Mom and sister have been cleaning out our old house so that someone can actually live there again without having pile upon piles of junk everywhere.  Since I have a truck my Mom asked if she could use it so that she can easily get rid of large amounts of things and not have to make a bunch of trips and so on.  When she was done with the truck she even packed up a few things to bring to me that she thought I might want/like to keep.

In the things she brought me was a card.  This card is not an ordinary card it is a Valentines card.  Not just ANY Valentines card it is a HUGE Valentines card.  Who gave me this great card you ask?  Anchana(Preaw) gave it to me when she was here as an exchange student a few years ago.  I miss her very much and well.. I’m now going to post some pictures from the card because it is so awesome.

I can’t wait to see her again.  Hopefully in a few years when she’s all done with school she will grace us all with her presence again.

YAY! I finally got a new computer. Best part about it? Adam paid for it. Granted that was his rent… but still!

Parts to go in Machine:
Motherboard: ASUS- M3N78 Pro
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 Black Edition (2.8GHz True Dual-Core Design)
Graphics: GeForce 8300 (on board)
RAM: 2G (Corsair DDR2)
CDROM: DVD RW
Extra: USB Multi-Function All in One Card Reader

Now three things that didn’t come with this setup.

1. Monitor, All good, Adam got an extra from a friend (thanks Carl)
2. Mouse, All good, I had one handy from the lappy
3. Keyboard, okay this one is a biggy and nobody had spares so I was forced to make it to the store for this one (so I pay 9 bucks who cares?!)

Acquiring the keyboard brings me to an interesting story involving a car, bike, cop, and me. After putting my computer together chatting with Mandie and finishing work I started up the install process of Windows and then I was reminded. “James, you do not have a keyboard. This may make things like putting in Windows Keys difficult.”

So I grab some socks and shoes, throw on my jacket, helmet, and backpack then hop on my bike. So now that I’m on my bike, I have my flashy lights on the back, and a big light on the front so I’m easily seen while I ride at 4:30 – 5:00 AM and I’m going pretty good on my normal route to Wal*Mart. As I get to a crossing of a large road a car comes out of NOWHERE and almost hits me!!

This is where the fun starts. A cop happened to be watching me for about a mile, maybe mile and a half. He hits the lights and the horn and the driver of the car and I jump a bit and huddle just kinda chill at the side of the road where we were already.

The cop comes up to us and looks -very- upset at what he had just witnessed. He then proceeds to inform the driver of magic car that Bikes get the right of way when they are on the crosswalk and the lights are in their favor. “Do not turn right on red into a biker, especially one that is clearly lit up so you don’t hit them!”

So after “making sure” that I was fine the cop gave the driver a citation for “reckless driving” that they now have to pay because I rode my bike to the store instead of driving the truck.

On a side note… I may look into getting one of those bright, reflective road worker vests and wear it…

Alright, this post is way overdue.

I’m back from NYC (if you didn’t know already). I went for New York Comic Con 2009 as a work venture. I’m super glad I asked to go when I did or I would have missed out on this.

I met lots of cool new people while working the booth and such, many reviewers and fans came up and talked for a bit (and got some swag for doing so). Was nice to actually hang out with the Executive producer and Lead Designs for the game company I work for as well. These guys are just awesome and you really can’t say enough good stuff about them.

I did get to walk the floor a bit and see some of the other booths out there. I tried to stop by and see Sohmer from LICD but somehow missed him and just saw Lar (which is okay …. kinda). Of course I grabbed all the free swag I could get and entered into every random contest that I could (no winnings on my part even though Chad did win something).

Outside of the Con though I did have a blast walking NYC and making sure Chad and I finished our “must do” list while we were in town. Even got a small tour from a super cool Librarian chick that we met while we were at the Con so that was sweet.

I did have two major fail points though. One, I didn’t really take pictures and I was supposed to take a lot. Two, we somehow managed to leave NYC without souvenirs.

We did take the Greyhound there and back, which was interesting all alone. To start, we had to chase the first bus down to let us on (after standing in front of it going “Is this our bus….”). And to end the ride, we had two or three drunk guys chilling out offering all of us “fruit drinks”.