Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

I forgot to set the alarm on my phone to exclude weekends, therefore yesterday morning at 5:45 am, it went off.

I woke up and did some Internet stuff, read blogs, comics, checked email, then I played some MOOII until just before 8:00 when Gina came over to inform me that she was up.

I asked her if she wanted to have breakfast, at the Original Pancake House (down by Food Shui). They have what honestly have to be the best pancakes in the world (and I really like the vegan ones I make).

The best part about their pancakes is that whatever flour combination they use doesn't make me narcoleptic, unlike IHOP, Denny's, or Waffle House. I mean honestly, I don't know what it is but when we go out for breakfast at any of those places, I am passing out within 30 minutes. So Gina has embargoed me eating pancakes at breakfast, unless they are from the Original Pancake House.

However, I had crepes this time around. The last time my decision came down to the Bacon Pancakes and the Cherry Crepes, I had the Bacon Pancakes. Which were excellent, bits of cooked bacon are mixed into the batter, so you end up with crunchy bacon bits in the pancakes. They also have bacon waffles, I might try them next time.

Gina had eggs, toast, ham and pumpkin pancakes. I think every visit, she has had the pumpkin pancakes. (Mind you this was I believe our fourth time there.)

So Gina did get up early yesterday and we spent the day out and about. We bought stuff for stockings and to trim the tree we bought last weekend.

I am being sent on a mission to find some specific movies for Gina, so I will be heading out in a few minutes. (I just finished breakfast, which consisted of left cherry crepes and left over Greek food).

Gina has taken to the habit of cruising the Austin Chronicle for ideas of stuff to do or places to go to on weekends, which is a great thing. I love the fact that the local papers like that provide a calendar of events, usually the events are better suited to our generation, or the generation right behind us.

This time around I saw an advert for El Greco, it was funny but Gina and I had recently had a conversation around Greek food, oh yeah, it was in regards to her visit home for the holidays, she is going to be hitting up Greek town for some good eats.

I had the pork souvlaki with orzo an peas. Gina had the pork gyro plate with orzo and peas. We split a side of hummus and tabouli (well I at the tabouli, it was good).

I best get dressed and head out.

Laterz

Even though we just had pizza the other night I settled on Pizza again tonight.

I know Blogs aren't supposed to be about what you had for dinner or lunch and such.

But I felt that this was a good way to start the conversation on something what I just went through.

My Hotel here (Wyndham Garden) has a restaurant downstairs. However, honestly I am not that impressed with their breakfast spread so ordering up some room service didn't sound that good to me.

I Turned to their directory/book of info they give you (subsequently the same book with the room service menu) and didn't find any suggestion on local dining or delivery.

I was in the mood for Chinese food, except the only place nearby is a horrible, horrible buffet (literally next door).

So I turned my search to the Internet, oh yeah, I forgot to mention that usually at Hotels without room service they give you a list of places that deliver (and usually give you menus too). Now the Internet is powerful, but there Dallas is huge, hence why they call it the Big D.

This means simply doing a Google search isn't going to be very helpful. This means I needed to hit up sites that specialize in food.

My immediate thought was Yelp. I have used it before and the community review part is helpful, usually you get useful tidbits of info on what to avoid or what to try.

Unfortunately, Yelp was not very much help.

Then I turned my search of to CitySearch (ba-dum-bump), some good results. Unfortunately, while it was able to provide me more options than Yelp, I was left with the notion that aside from the place next door there were no places nearby (thus very unlikely there would be delivery).

That led me to look over Yellowbook.com and Yellowpages.com, oddly enough and yet not oddly enough, they both returned the same data. For some reason I expected a difference in the return of data, not so much more restaurants in one than the other, but more information about the restaurants in one vs the other.

Now, the one commonality across all of these was mapping. Some of them used MapQuest, some of them used Google Maps, another one used something I couldn't identify and the last used a Microsoft Live Search power map.

In the end I ended up deciding that Pizza was going to be what I would have to settle for instead of Chinese food.

But then, I ended up having to resort to the specific pizza websites. I haven't had Hungry Howie's in a long, long time. And I was thinking that their famous flavored crust would hit the spot.

But their closest one was about 12 miles away, so I didn't even bother calling.

When I was checking in, I remember the front desk telling another guest something about Domino's.

So In the end that is who I called.

The search went full circle.

I cannot fault the Internet, it isn't Google's fault (or Yelp, or CitySearch, or the IYP directories).

Anyway, the pizza just got here.

Just think about everything I went through, the next time your traveling.

Did you have a hard time finding something to eat, or worse yet delivered?

Laterz

So Gina and I went to the farmer's market again this weekend, Jeremy and Nicole met us there as planned.

Gina and I got there a bit a head of schedule (prolly like 20 minutes), so we had actually gotten most of our shopping done before they showed up.

It was fun. We bought some more bread. Hopefully, with a little luck Emma will not get a hold of it this time. I think I might have forgotten to mention up here on the blog that Emma managed to get a hold of the baguette that we bought last weekend. When we realized it was missing our first thought was "EMMA!!!" Gina found the remaining 1/3 of the baguette in the backyard.

We bought some more tomatoes and more basil. Gina is planning to turn most of the fresh basil into pesto (and freeze) it.

We also bought some snacks and drinks while we were there. I ate a tofu dog that had been rolled in dough with sauerkraut and mustard, it was pretty good. We also bought a beef "arm roast", which will be pot roast on one night and then it will magically turn into Gina's tasty beef and barely soup another night (most likely the following night).

We also went over to IKEA today, I have been wanting to get a laptop table so that when I am sitting on the couch I can do stuff on the laptop without it being on my lap (like it is right now). This laptop table is apparently called DAVE.

Well the Round-Rock IKEA is out of DAVE tables, they were also out of the computer desk that I thought would be perfect for Gina's new room. I guess I probably haven't mentioned that either. Did I forget to mention that Gina bought a Bass recently? Not a Bass Guitar but a string bass, some times referred to as a "double bass".

And with that, she has cleaned out our guest room, as to house her bass and her music stuff. Given the extra room that is now in there (seeing as the queen bed has been removed) I think this one corner desk from IKEA would be perfect in there. Gina has been needing a place of her own in the house, so I am very excited to help her get the room into order to help her feel a bit more at relaxed when she is at home.

The desk I have in mind is the TOVIK.

Jeremy and I will be heading over to Fast Eddie's soon to try and get a spot to play Guitar Hero III before it comes out tomorrow. I have no idea how busy this will be, but I probably actually need to call him in a few minutes and see about us heading over there, cuz I think it is probably going to be swamped. I have enjoyed playing Guitar Hero at the stores and at the Webmaster Jam Session.

Oh yeah, so I had the idea and it is just an idea right now as I haven't had the chance to really look into the details. But here is the idea, Gina makes really, really good dog treats. I mean our dogs love them and from what I heard Kelly's dogs loved them too. So we bought some dog treats down at the farmer's market. They are honestly not very impressive. I think that Gina should make treats and we can sell them down there. I would have fun being down there on Saturday mornings and being part of the local commerce scene.

We have tossed around the idea quite a bit today and Gina seems interested, but skeptical that the dog treats are good enough to sell. I am believe the dog treats are excellent and worthy of selling. Given the number of dogs we saw there last weekend and this weekend, I feel it is safe to say that it is a good venue for us to try and break into the market.

Gina has on occasion also made dog beds, so I think that would be another thing that can be sold. The other thing would be the "belly bands" that Gina has made for Basil. The ones that Gina made do not seem to bug Basil, but the one that she bought at PetSmart did. I mean the one from PetSmart used some elastic in it that looked like it was painful to wear for long periods of time, while the bands that Gina makes do not. Another thought would be to also allow John to sell some of his handcrafted pet furniture down there as well.

In my opinion the folks buying from that particular market are more likely to be interested in good dog treats and dog beds and hand crafted pet furniture than any other farmer's market I have been to. Then again I could be completely wrong.

Like I said, haven't done much investigation. But if the cost of the booth isn't too much, I would be willing to pay for at least a couple of weekends of experimentation.

More to come on the idea of the farmer's market booth.

Time to give Jeremy a call.

Laterz

I found Food Shui while I was looking for good vegan restaurants, during my brief time as a dietary vegan.

I dragged Gina there, she is always skeptical of new places. But she likes it.

Apparently, she likes it so much that she eats there pretty much anytime that I am out of town.

I definitely like their lunch rice bowls. I haven't tried much of their other stuff, I need to. But I am more than willing to say that Food Shui is one of the best Asian food places I have eaten at in a long time.

Back to eating my Garlic Beef Bowl.

Laterz