JP’s Eatery

Today I walked downtown and got some lunch at JPs.  They serve burgers, sandwiches, and subs.  As we walked in there was a “Wall of Shame” for those attempting to down the Slapshot, which consists of 15 sliders, 1 large fry, and a milk shake.  I was tempted, but only slightly tempted.  I don’t eat 4x the daily recommended amount of food anymore.  I was thinking maybe a burger, but I instead went with my gut instinct and decided on a sub.

The combo sub looked interesting.  The guy at the register wasn’t sure what was on it, but I soon found out it was piled high with turkey, ham, and roast beef.  I opted for all the veggies, cause that how I role.  Options included tomatoes, pickles, black olives, lettuce and onions.  The pickles were cubed and at first I thought they were green peppers.  They really worked well on the sandwich.  Subs come in three available sizes: 8″, 12″ and 16″.  I decided on a 12″ and it came out all wrapped up in butcher paper.

My only complaint would be there was so much stuff on my sandwich that it was hard not to let some of it fall out.  Luckily I had washed my hands before going over there so I just grabbed the first 6″ piece and dug in.  The meat was definitely high quality, the dining area had old-school bar stools and counters, and I didn’t have to deal with the 16 yr old attitudes that most Subway restaurants seem to acquire.  All in all, I give JPs two thumbs up.

Feedburner

If you have an active blog or website with RSS feeds enabled, Feedburner can be a very useful tool to see how many are subscribing to your feed and what’s being looked at and downloaded.  I recently upgraded my Feedburner account to the *new* Google version last month because I wanted to check out the new Adsense integration features.  This would allow me to put Google Adsense ads into my feeds.

After the migration was all said and done, I lost almost two years of feed stats on my podcast.  Major bummer.  So even though you can maybe, I highly stress maybe here, make a few bucks off of some ads, make sure you’re willing to lose all history of your statistics.

Scottish Eggs

I’m not exactly sure when we started talking about these at work.  Either Marquis or Mike brought them up one day.  These consist of hard-boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep fried.  Doesn’t that just sound absolutely amazing?

So I tried making them today.  They turned out to be much larger than I expected.  This is partly due to the fact we only had the jumbo eggs and the fact the sausage wasn’t completely thawed in the middle so there were some larger chunks of meat.  The deep frying was a little tricky because we didn’t have enough oil for the eggs to be completely submerged.  We ended up putting some of them in the microwave for a tiny bit after we pulled them out of the oil.

It’s probably hard to tell exactly how big they ended up.  I’d say they were slightly smaller than my fist if that helps.  They were also quite filling.  The “traditional” recipe doesn’t call for cheese or ketchup to be added, but I couldn’t really resist.  With or without, these are really quite tasty.  in the last two pictures you’ll see I melted some New York Sharp Cheddar on top of half an egg along with a little sauce.

Caution!: Eating Scottish Eggs may force you to take a Thanksgiving style nap afterward.

Warren’s Lobster House

Since Liz and I both had Veteran’s Day off from work, we decided to go check out Warren’s Lobster House in Kittery, ME.  Yes, we went to Maine.  Even though the state has turned into our de facto scapegoat on most issues, we do occassionally cross the border.  I had originally heard about this from a guy at work.  They have fresh seafood, a great salad bar, and it’s close.

Liz is really into all things that swim or live under water so this was a no-brainer for her.  We checked out their web site and printed off a coupon for the whole-lobster dinner.  This turned out to be a good plan because lobster is priced by market value and I think we save 6 or 7 bucks off the meal.

I ended up getting the Potato Crusted Haddock.  It wasn’t too awesome, but it wasn’t bad either.  The crust on top was supposed to contain a special horseraddish something, but I couldn’t really taste it.  The salad bar couldn’t hold a candle to any of the mega-salad-bar buffet restaurants, however, it definitely holds its own in the realm of salad bars.  All of the ingredients were very fresh and there were several things I’ve never seen on a salad bar before.  The bleu cheese dressing even had large, noticeable chunks of cheese in it.  Along with the salad bar as an option of soup with cheese and crackers.

We also decided to go all out and try an appetizer.  We chose one of the day’s specials - loaded potato skins.  They were pretty greasy and just bland.  I think it was just missing salt.  I guess we should have salted them.

All in all, I’d say this was an enjoyable experience.  We went during lunch when prices were a bit cheaper and we also had that coupon.  I don’t think we’d randomly go there for dinner or anything.  The bill would be kind of pricey.

Poor Palin

Looks like the hockey isn’t so down to earth.  Even Fox News is throwing her under the bus after the recent election.  Here’s what ABC has to say about it.  Palin’s one of the big reasons I stayed away from voting Republican this presidential election.

Voting

Apparently it pays to pre-register, and it would have been nice if I had known.  I got up early this morning and was at the poll around 6:30am.  They opened at 7am and I was fifth in line.  I thought I’d actually get to work early.  So I get to the front, register, and had to go to the back.  Kinda sucked.  Lesson learned.

No, seriously. I don’t have kids.

It seems like people have always thought I’m older than I really am.  I’m sure there are a variety of reasons for that.  The summer after I got out of high school I worked with a bunch of late 20-somethings through 40 yr olds and they always invited me out to the bars with them after work.  It wasn’t until the end of that summer that they found out I was 17, not 28.  All through college people continued to think I was much older - probably because of the bald head thing and the facial hair.

Today really took the cake though.  Liz and I were meeting up at the theater to see Oliver Stone’s latest - W.  While I was waiting in the lobby for her to get off work, a woman kept smiling at me from about 5 feet away.  I eventually did the polite thing and said, “hi.”  I’m not sure if that was a good thing or bad thing.  She wouldn’t stop talking to me.  I kinda feel like she was hitting on me.  Turns out she was there waiting for her high-school-aged-daughter to come out of a movie to give her a ride home.  She apparently assumed I was there to pick up my 15 yr old too.  I told her I wasn’t waiting for my child, then had to repeatedly reinforce the fact I don’t even have kids.  Let’s just say I felt saved when Liz finally showed up and I could walk away.

Indecision 2008

It’s not often that I talk about politics.  I definitely have my opinions, but I don’t often try to push those on others…especially ones I don’t know.  You’ll probably be hard pressed to find me knocking door-to-door or standing on a corner with a sign about any issue.

I’ve always considered myself a Republican and it’s only in the past 5 years or so that I’ve started realizing there’s more to life than having the biggest military in the world and making sure that certain religious issues are going the way I want.  This year is a big year for an election.  I feel whomever takes office will be at a turning point for our nation.  The past decade has seen some radical changes in economics, military might, world leaders, and global perception.  Couple that with the current economic crisis, health care issues, ongoing education issues, etc, etc. and there’s a lot that could go well or poorly.

On top of all this, 2009 is the first year there will be either a non-white man or a woman will be part of the executive branch.  It’s about time if you ask me.  I don’t always keep up on all the updates, who said what, latest speeches and policies.  One thing I do try to keep track of is the debates.  The hard part is deciphering all of the “make you feel good” statements from what the candidate can actually accomplish.  This time around it’s been strikingly apparent to me that McCain is just an angry old man on the verge of boiling over.  He constantly interrupts, attacks, doesn’t keep to the time limits, and seems disrespectful.  I’m not saying that Obama isn’t guiltly  of some of the same things, I’ve just noticed it consistently from McCain.

Yesterday Rolling Stone printed an article about McCain and his maverick-ness.  It’s a long read, 10 pages to be exact, but I think it’s worth reading.  I’m sure many will dismiss the content purely because of the source, however, most of this stuff I’ve heard before from many other more reputable news sources.  Everybody knows how McCain acted while he was in the Navy.  It should be common knowledge that his father and grandfather were two of the greatest Naval Admirals this country has ever seen.  I also know my mother’s opinion of him as a politician from Arizona because we used to live there when I was a child.

Oh, and Palin - don’t even get me started on her.  I firmly believe McCain is wondering why his people told him to pick her as a running mate.  I don’t care that she’s a woman or the way she speaks or the fact that she hasn’t been in politics very long.  More and more stuff, scandalous stuff, just keeps coming to the surface about her.  Even if you ignore that, it’s hard to ignore her lack of knowledge when it comes to things a vice president should know like Supreme Court cases, laws, processes, or even just having a general opinion about the war in Iraq.  She scares me.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I still consider myself a Republican, but there’s no way I’m voting McCain/Palin this year.

Robert Forster

Last week I totally thought Mr. Petrelli sounded like Max Cherry from Jackie Brown.

Brick Walls

Since moving to New Hampshire, I’ve had the pleasure of living somewhere with exposed brick walls.  This was and is pretty cool, but the one complaint I’ve had is all the debris that seems to fall from them.  For a while I’ve been thinking I should attach the hose to the vacuum cleaner and try to clean them up a bit, but haven’t done it.  This week Liz took some initiative (aka avoiding homework) and worked on the living room a bit.  Today I worked on what I had access to in my offce/old elevator shaft/the Lebowski Podcast Headquarters.  You’d be surprised how much dust and stuff is just sitting there on the brick ledges.

Is this a common thing for interior brick walls?