SeanMike

Getting old sucks...or maybe just "getting healthier than before" sucks.

I loved them, too. Admittedly I probably couldn't eat them anymore...

Judi, I liked seeing your post. Admittedly I'm biased, as I've been friends with Ed for almost 20 years. I was at Quench a couple of weeks ago to meet with him and Michael and I was impressed to see the number of patrons who stopped by to compliment the two of them on the food. Admittedly that's simply anecdotal evidence, but Marshall seemed to enjoy his food there. Rockville is a bit far for me but I'm hoping to get up there and try it out myself sometime.

When I was a kid, my dad used to take us to Hardee's for sausage gravy and biscuits before we'd go hunting. It was always such a treat.

I used to take one every day. Forget why I stopped. Might be worth trying that again.

I kind of liked the Tunisian place when I was living down there.

Yeah, my doc put me on a vitamin D booster when I first went to her, and now I just take a supplement. I get my blood work done once every couple of months between this stuff and my psoriasis meds (especially since I'm changing those). But I'm thinking the water might be part of it - I've definitely been too dehydrated lately. And yeah, I know it's because of the change of my diet. I eat a lot more vegetables, for instance, now, sometimes even entirely vegetarian meals! And I eat a lot less fat, even doing things like "trimming the fat off my steak before eating it". o_O

I work out 5-6 times a week under a routine my personal trainer sets up with me.

Just over a year ago I bought a grill. Before that I almost never cooked. I started grilling up loads of chicken, pork, veggies, etc., so that I'd have food to eat over the week. Later I bought a bike, then started running. In the fall I found out I was diabetic and had high cholesterol so I got stricter on my diet, started seeing a personal trainer, and talking to a nutritionist. So, basically, over the course of a year I lost over 60 pounds, got my blood sugar under control, am working on my cholesterol (it was there, then went back up, and we'll see), and I feel better than I have in years. But here's the thing: occasionally, I still eat something bad for me. For instance, I went to the Beer & Bacon Festival. It was awesome. I had a roast beef po' boy at the Passenger last week and it was one of the best ones I've had (period). And every night and morning after that, I've been miserable. Unable to sleep. Dehydrated/dry mouth. My stomach felt taut and I wanted to throw up. So yeah, I can't eat stuff like that anymore. That sucks, but that's probably for the best. But is there anyway to recover from that other than just time and Tums? It completely wrecks me in a way that I can't recover quickly from unlike booze. I don't want to know to enable me - I'm not going to change my habits either way, I'll still eat healthy overall and occasionally have something delicious but bad for me - but just so I don't have to call in sick to work the next day because I'm exhausted and miserable.

Currently I'm working on "Robot Uprisings" on my Kindle, and "The Algebraist" in paperback (usually when riding my exercise bike, though that's been pre-empted by watching Game of Thrones recently). I've got a bazillion books coming up on my Kindle, so it'll be whatever I feel like...

I've made it a point to comment on my leftovers containers to the restaurants I frequent. For instance, Cafe Asia in Rosslyn uses plastic containers that I've reused for months before the dishwasher inevitably melts the lid. I've told them "thank you" for the containers and that it is one of the reasons why I return (and sometimes order extra to insure I have leftovers). The only place I've gotten a styrofoam container recently (Eastern Carryout, which I only hit anymore when very, very drunk) I've asked (when sober enough) to have them put stuff into cardboard instead.

Last time I had one, the NOLA resident with me commented that it seemed smaller than before. Whether the default was a half, or it actually was, I don't know, I just know it was wonderful. My first muffaletta was at Pat O'Brian's in the French Quarter (hey, I was unwise to the ways of the city at the time). I always said I hated olives, but my server insisted I don't hold the olive salad. I am so glad I listened to him.

My brother and sister-in-law use Fur-Get-Me-Not in south Arlington. They're fantastic. Caveat: his dog got attacked by another dog there once. That dog was there on a "trial" day, which it had failed, and busted out of its kennel. Its owners paid poor Henry's bills, and he's gotten extra special care from the staff since then. They know not only the dogs, they know the owners, to the point when I go to pick him up for whatever reason they recognize me because I look like my brother!

Because they're really not *that* close? I mean, in the same county, but yeah...if I was in Westover, hungry, and wanted a sandwich, I wouldn't drive to Courthouse just for a better specific one. (The original is closer, I will admit.)

Carnival of Chaos, 1997 I'm biased on this album - it's the one that I came into when we first visited. My version of it is the preview version with an unedited version of one song, but still, this album is one of the least covered. I remember them having a lot of animosity with their record label at the time, it was around when their popularity was at its nadir, and to top it off, they were being asked to endorse shoes - which they had to wear first, which had no padding, and the Slave Pit was all concrete floors. This was also Pete Lee's and Casey Orr's last albums. While I spent most of my time with Casey, Derks, and Brad, Casey - perhaps due to his Texan-ness - was by far the most friendly and effusive. (Derks and Brad are also great guys, as was Brockie, but only Derks really got online at that time, and every bohab and GWAR fan went for Brockie immediately.) On this tour was when Matt Maguire was doing Robo-Sleazy, as well, and there was an undead Gor-Gor. This was also the tour I saw the most GWAR shows on - my first was in Virginia Beach with friends, my first time on a guest list period for a show, and led through my Dragon*Con experience, Cleveland for Halloween, and random other shows. 1. Penguin Attack - One of the few they still play, and kind of a stereotypical GWAR song that leads off well. There's a reason it's one of the few still played, from what I understand, and the band had always signed off to let fans make their own versions of a video for this song which I think is cool. 2. Let's Blame The Lightman - I have no idea about this song. It sucks. 3. First Rule Is - Ditto. 4. Sammy - Almost 7 minutes of Sammy Davis Jr.? 5. Endless Apocalypse - Let's take the sucky songs, and make them long and slow. Huh? 6. Billy Bad Ass - Falls apart at the end, but I take it as an ode against a certain type of fan (different than a bohab, mostly more towards "angry redneck fans" which I might have fallen into at that point). 7. Hate Love Songs - Sung by Casey Orr aka Beefcake the Mighty. Kinda pop-y, but funny ("I love puppies/when they're roadkill"), and one of my more favorite GWAR songs. 8. Letter From The Scallop Boat - Supposedly from a felon in prison. I take it as mocking, and honestly, kind of boring. 9. Pre-Skool Prostitute - "Have You Seen Me?" did it better, funnier, etc. etc. This is the sole "they weren't trying to NOT get a parental advisory" kind of song on here and really, it sucks. I always think of Sublime's "Wrong Way" in a GWAR version when I hear it. 10. If I Could Beat That - Catchy. I don't care about it at all. 11. In Her Fear - Ditto. 12. Back To Iraq - Remember this is 1997, so before 9/11 and the Iraq invasion. I do think their critiques of the Gulf War were well done, and a good artifact of their punk rock origins. 13. I Suck On My Thumb - Reference tracks 10 and 11. I don't know the reasonings here. 14. The Private Pain Of Techno Destructo - The return of Hunter Jackson! This version got edited due to a guitar solo stealing from Star Trek and so Paramount sued. But really: it's a typical fight song for GWAR songs where the "bad guy" (come on, "worse than GWAR") and GWAR fight it out. "We each have our own private pain/We must pass this pain onto our brother/a never-ending cycle starts again!" 15. Gonna Kill You - Possibly one of the slowest GWAR songs ever - kind of country, and all about what the title says. I think the format saves it from being like some of the other songs (cough cough 10 11 13) on this album. 16. Sex Cow - Country/surfer song about bestiality? I guess? I love it. 17. Antarctican Drinking Song - Let me just say I copied the first word of the song title verbatim. I tried to make this a drinking song at UVA but it didn't work. I consider this a flashback to Hell-o!. 18. Don't Need A Man - Hey, you remember in the '90s when they would put hidden tracks on CDs? Yeah, everyone no one loved those. But this is Danielle Stampe (Slymenstra Hymen) doing a slow jazz song. In concert, she wore a naga costume that I got to help her with. (Also, evidently, in the VA Beach show, she flashed her tits to the crowd, and I missed it.) Her voice is unmatched on this track, as, to be honest, it was usually not this good on other tracks/in concert. Also, this is a nearly 12 minute track so that it can have a bit of other stuff in there that no one really cared too much about...but I'd seriously suggest playing this song for random folks and have them guess who made it... Okay, now we're into the nadir (I like that word) of GWAR albums...the next one or two will be short, then we'll get into some fun again, I promise (errr, hope) if I can keep my eyeballs out of HBOGo.

Goddamnit. I was most of the way through Carnival of Chaos and lost my draft. If I can't find it, you'll get a remake...later...

I am definitely happy to hear this. I've been kind of missing Eventide lately (it's been ages since I've been there) and had been thinking about getting back over there. Also, I'm glad I don't have to go into the city to eat Antonio's food! (I still miss CommonWealth, too...)

I was just thinking it'd be nifty if there was a button I could push to suggest a thread on Twitter...then I looked down...

This was an incredible event, and I have to give major kudos to the organizers - it was very well organized, just the right size (good crowd, but not too crowded) and all around a great time! And now I'll never eat bacon again. (oh, i had bacon bits on my salad...)

I. Love. That. Phrase.

And right after I read this post, I got a press release saying that Katie Carter, formerly of Sona, Arrowine, and Cowgirl Creamery, is joining their team. Use that information as you will.

There have been restaurants that have done this - for instance, Pizzeria Paradiso, if I remember correctly, and there was a time recently where Jack Rose did that with some New England beers (and really pissed off the brewer by doing it). One of the owners of Ivy and Coney told me that they'd planned on doing that with their Old Style beer, as distribution went to Pennsylvania, if I recall, but they stopped distributing to that state and so they had to stop their plans, as it's just too expensive to drive in. I think that's what it boils down to, overall cost - especially when you're combining "enough quantity to pay for it" and "breweries who aren't interested in distributing here yet".

You've got non-convenient parking - the biggest source is over a block away. Especially now that you walk past Rustico. The area, and I live here, isn't great for destination or just walking around traffic unless you're on a major road. In that part of Arlington, Wilson is not a major walking road. It's dark and not-happy. Maybe when they finish the building across from Ballston mall it'll be better, like when they finished the new buildings on Glebe and you got the BW-3, Mussel Bar, etc.

Great. Now my desire to stock up on Octagon is battling my deep-seated, perhaps irrational but often justified, hatred for Safeway.

I'm a bit buzzed, my ankle is killing me thanks to rolling it earlier, and I just read a number of tributes to Dave, so I'm feeling a bit melancholy - in other words, perfect timing to write about some anecdotes. Now with added Ray Bradbury! (I am dead serious about that.) 1. After getting to know mostly Derks via the Internet, we were invited to the Slave Pit to visit. We showed up too early (unknowingly) but couldn't find it since, as mentioned before, it was labeled S.P. Inc. and not "The Slave Pit". That trip to Richmond in the late '90s was the first time I'd ever driven through a stop light without stopping because I was honestly scared of the neighborhood I was in. Finally, we found the place, and showed up right as most of the guys were just getting going. We'd brought the requested hefeweizen (Pyramid, in this case, which sold in Charlottesville for a while (like Abita) and nowhere else on the East coast for a few years, it seems, that we could find). We helped show Casey how to download USENET porn, took a tour, didn't act like bohabs, and mostly drank beer and smoked some pot. Brad was handling catalogs for an upcoming mailing and they had a copy machine that was very temperamental. We volunteered to help, so one of us would fold things while the other would...as we phrased it...."caressed the clit" of the copy machine. If you did that, it made copies. Brad was so happy with our help that we got pre-release copies of Carnival of Chaos. The big difference in copies was that this had a version of The Private Pain of Techno Destructo that riffed off the Star Trek theme and Paramount had sued, so it was taken off the release version. After that visit, we were told we were always welcome, especially if we brought beer. 2. I was helping Scott Krahl with the undead version of Gor-Gor the dinosaur for the tour. We found some roughly cutout foam (at the time, most of the items were foam, cheesecloth I think, and latex, in layers) that we roughed up into a dog-like phallus for Gor-Gor. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out a good mechanism for it in the costume in time. (Scott also wore Gor-Gor's costume - he was well over 6' tall, and it was on stilts.) 3. Fortunately for us, we usually had a designated driver picking us up from the Slave Pit, a nursing student at VCU. Once she took us to the Wal-Mart SuperCenter to buy food. The sheriff's deputies standing by the doors leading out laughed their butts off at how stoned and paranoid and hungry we were. 4. We went to a lot of RAWG/other shows during that time. One had a mostly female band, and when three clearly drunk and amorous fans came to their merch booth, the female lead singer told the first to buy something (he did), the second to buy her a drink (he did), and the third to kiss her ass. She did that without thinking, and couldn't figure out why the third kept hanging around until someone reminded her... Later that show RAWG played. I stood mid-crowd, upfront, as Dave hit wiffle golf balls into the crowd. Things I'm not proud about: I drove home that night. My car took a lot of damage and I'm goddamn lucky I didn't get hurt, hurt anybody, or get arrested. 5. DragonCon, 1997. Maybe a week before I turned 21. Their first show was at a small club in Atlanta. As I walked through the crowd to get into the tour bus (to, uh, "warm up"), I laughed at the complaints I heard (as it was sold out): "Hey, let me in!" "Hey, I know Flattus Maximus!" "Hey, I *AM* Flattus Maximus!" (It was.) (We got him in.) On the way down to Atlanta from Charlottesville we had stopped to pick up a woman we'd met on the Internet. I will call her A. We didn't know this yet, but she was stone cold insane as hell. What we did know was she was a busty brunette. Walking into the club the first night, the large bouncer looked at me as I showed him my ID and pleaded for me to get the over-21 stamp. He looked at her and asked if we were together. I said she showed up with me, but was single. I got an over-21 stamp, went to the bar, and got HAMMERED with Scott, who couldn't wear his Gor-Gor costume due to the size of the stage. Going back to the bus, we hung out on there as A and I were supposed to stay with the band. Sitting on an idling bus, smelling diesel fumes...I had to puke. I left the bus, puked, and went to get back on. The driver stopped me. "No way you're getting back on." "I puked over there! Not on the bus! I'm okay now!" "No." Brockie and Derks showed up. "This is our bus, let him on!" "No." Finally, I said I'd take a cab to their hotel. A offered to come with me, waving her stun gun in the air - we were not in a good part of Atlanta. Everyone shrugged and off they went and off we went. To the wrong hotel. There, we tried to find a cab to the right hotel, but we were about broke. Finally a cab driver took us. We had to stop in the middle of a festival so I could puke. We got to the hotel, somehow got to the room, and I fell asleep on top of the air conditioning unit. A got up at one point, evidently, to give Dave a blow job. Later in the morning, as everyone (there were probably 6-8 people in there) she managed to change into a bathing suit in front of everyone. Even later in the morning, when we went to DragonCon and to the GWAR booth, Dave called her Kneepads, and she retained that nickname until her behavior got her much, much worse ones. After the events of the night before, I rallied (being 20, after all), and GWAR played the con, with Beefcake thanking all the fat chicks in tiny outfits. While down in the mosh pit, I looked up at Matt Maguire, who at the time was dressed as "Robo-Sleazy P. Martini". On his back was a big tub of "toxic waste" (water, flour, food coloring...) that ran through a line in his finger to spray the crowd. We made eye contact and I knew I was screwed. He picked up the entire tub and drenched me and probably a solid yard radius around me from head to toe in green "toxic waste". It took *years* to get that out of the clothes I wore, and the Georgia Tech student whose bunk I "borrowed" that night was *pissed*. (Also the night I found out A had herpes, so at least I'd stopped hitting on her.) 6. That wasn't the only DragonCon. At one other, I was hanging out with BuzzBomb, a self-described North Carolina redneck whose usual outfit was a GWAR hat, GWAR t-shirt tucked into tight jeans, a rough beard, and no, he was not skinny, and a bottle of whiskey. He liked to do his Belushi impression and chug a fifth of Jim Beam. Also with me was Casey, a tall, buxom brunette from Arkansas who had...known...a lot of bands. Me, at the time, I typically wore cut off urban camo shorts and a GWAR shirt, usually with a Confederate flag bandana. As we entered the elevator in the main hotel, I had a six pack of PBR tall boys (BEFORE THEY WERE COOL HIPSTERS I WAS JUST BROKE) hooked to my belt. We got on the glass elevator and it was packed. I noticed I was right by Ray Bradbury, who had a large award in his hand. I offered him a beer and he demurred, indicating his hands were full. I chugged the beer for him. At this point, for some reason, Casey revealed to Buzz that under her leopard print miniskirt she was wearing no underwear, and combined with the fact that she had slept with a number of band members, couldn't get off on the floor where GWAR, the Misfits, and some other bands were. Buzz, of course, just yelled at the top of his lungs "CASEY AIN'T WEARIN' NO PANTIES!" While we were in a glass elevator, going up. Everyone below us looked up. Ray Bradbury got VERY interested. The trio of Scottish highlander type guys, on the other hand, got pissed. "Ye insulted the lass' honor!" they screamed, reaching for their replica broadswords. Casey and I both laughed at that. Honor?! Buzz was under a fifth of Beam, and scared. The doors opened and he bolted. The highlanders chased him. The doors closed and we watched the chase around the open middle area as we went to our floor. 7. Last one for now. Another DragonCon. I was walking around with my friend Dan (a 6'2" redhead) and his mom (a barely 5' tall multiple black belt holder). Dan had been wearing this giant tall "top hat" type hat that Troma had paid him in movies to wear ads on. He knew I knew the guys in GWAR, but even as an old friend, kind of wondered how much I did know. We went to one of the main auditoriums for a big event (costume contest, maybe?). We're sitting in the front row of seats in the middle section (ya know, with a huge open row in front of us, before the really up close seats) and Dave comes walking by, obviously half dead, in typical outfit - shorts, t-shirt. All I said was "Hey Dave, what's up?" He gave us a huge grin, "Hey SeanMike!" and sat down with the three of us and shot the breeze for probably 15-30 minutes, just hanging out. He told Dan and his mom to swing by the booth the next day so they could try on costumes (which they did) and off he went. That's the kind of guy Dave was. He always had time for everyone. He remembered a helluva lot more than you might expect. He was irreverent to everyone, he gave lots of shit (and he didn't take any bullshit), but in my experience, if you were good with him, he was good with you. (Even, I think, when I criticized one of his early drafts of his Wharghoul book. I didn't see a lot of intermediate drafts between, say, '98/99 and publication, but if he didn't take my advice, he took someone's similar.) Okay. Time for bed. Next time, Carnival of Chaos.