I’m talking to Gunner online right now about PJ’s Pizza - the greatest restaurant in all of Warren, IN. Unfortunately, our beloved provider of food, good music and high-class entertainment shut down last summer. Thinking about it has inspired me to write another poem.
Oh PJ’s, Oh PJ’s
Pajamas you were not.
You could be found in Warren
And the pizza it was hot.
Breadsticks and Timmy Bread,
Lemonade and Ice Tea in the back.
A jukebox full of memories
Where quarters went in the slot.
We loved you and supported you
As often as we could.
We sang your praises always
And told everyone we could.
Southern Rock was abound
Every time we were there.
Even Meatloaf was played
For Crickit’s share.
One night we came
With anticipations high.
But no love was found,
Only a garage sale.
What a sight!
And who did we find
Down the street and to the left?
None other than East of Chicago
With their buffet and new booths.
A coincidence I find this
Not very much.
We mourn the loss of our friend
Quite much.
The food, the laughs,
The music and friends.
PJ’s will live on in our hearts
Until the bitter end.
TOPPIT is a pizza place in my town. TOPPIT stands for The Only Pizza Place In Town, however, it’s not. The pizza is alright. Nothing stellar like a PJ’s or Harris mind you. Its previous owners used to randomly close and open and it was oh so annoying when you were jonesing for a large pepperoni. Well eventually some new people bought it with promises of being a normal restaurant. Last night Toll and I walked down to TOPPIT to enjoy some pizza and found them closed. We then realized that both of us had never seen hours posted for the place with the new management. Ever. So we went to the competition down by the highway. You gotta be open to do business.
Well, people seem to always be doing these ‘end of the year’ things and I haven’t done one yet. In fact, this last part of the year we knew as 2k5 A.D. left me not blogging nearly as much or as indepthly. Part of the reason I started doing this blog thing was to get some of the thoughts out of my head. Now this doesn’t mean that I spill everything to my friend, the internet, it just meant that this was one way to share some of the stuff in my head. Some of the more intelligent thoughts come and go with certain things currently going on in my life, movies I’ve seen, books I’ve read, and conversations had. Some of those thought get verbalized to certain people and then I don’t feel the need to stand on my soapbox and type about them.
So anyways, here’s some of the happenings of this past year in no particular order:
-Finding The Voiz(linked on side) and other sweet videobloggers
-Another round of moving
-Movies, movies, movies
-PJ’s closing down (insert tear and sniffle)
-Liz
-Weddings
-Pennsylvania road trip with Liz and Eric Dubya Davis
-Staying with the Shorb’s on above roadtrip
-4th of July with the guys out at Telman’s
- taking two spanish classes for free where I work and brushing up on la lengua materna
-discovering Hollywood Bar and Filmworks
-Trips to Funlumbus
-Another summer of movie nights
-Eating good Pizza King
-Acquiring a red stapler
-Green Day concert
-Cooking with habaneros (I know the tilde isn’t there but the font gets screwy sometimes)
-Ice storm
-Having Shorb for a neighbor
-Phone at work
-Arrested Development and Mr. Show
Ok, so I’ve listed a lot of things here and I’m tired of listing. I think you’re getting the point. I just figured out I’ve seen 36 movies that came out last year and there’s 39 more I know of that I wanted to see. So many movies…so little time. And on that note I think it’s time to stop typing for the night, put some clothes away and get some sleep.
P.S. - Top 10 movie list is on its way.
Unfortunately I don’t have a sad ballad about my favorite pizza place in the whole state, but maybe I’ll come up with something later.
On the fateful eve of Sept 11, 2005 Liz and I drove to Warren followed by many comrades in arms from the hallowed floor of SammyII. We got there all hungry and excited to pop some quarters into that jukebox and fire up yet another round of never-ending 70’s and 80’s southern rock. Yet what to our eager eyes should appear but an empty dining room with rummage sale written all over it. The middle tables were gone, there was a movie rack full of VHS, random computer monitors, books and other junk lined the tables around the perimeter. “What the hell happened,” you might ask. Well that’s what we’d like to know.
We usually call before we come with more than 10 people and this time C-Willz found out the line had been disconnected. That certainly didn’t deter us - cause we’re their best customers, right? Well guess what we found a block and a half away….can’t guess? Ok, I’ll tell you. We found an East of Chicago. Funny how a chain restaurant shows up after our favorite mom and pop place mysteriously goes under. Then to top it all off they couldn’t even support PJ’s flower shop with their table centerpieces.
If you ask me there’s something foul afoot in that town.
Once again I get to stop working for a few days. I always love it when that happens. Looks like I’ll be experiencing the Covered Bridge Festival tonight. That should be fun. There’s also a run to PJ’s in the near future and Monday I’m heading off to the Green Day concert in Indy.
The class is going well and things are starting to sort of slow down here at work. My DSL has been out since yesterday…but all in all it’s been a decent week.
Today I’m finishing up making my enchiladas. I’m calling them spicy cause I put a bunch of this ground up habañero stuff I bought in there along with a lot of cayenne, chili powder, etc. I’m hoping it’s actually going to be hot.
Last night we had some PJ’s fun. Oh, for those of you who were all wondering what that one chick’s tattoo was of - it’s a little bunny, playboy style. Their little kids were there last night and one kept crying and crying. I felt like I should do something but they aren’t my kids and I don’t know them or their mothers. Brent came with us though. I think it was a good send off for Sevier. Afterwards we played a round of frizolf and watched Orange County - another Jack Black classic.
So right now I’m waiting for that sauce to cool off so I won’t burn my hands when I start rolling the enchiladas.
Ever get yourself all fired up for something only to be let down? It’s happened to me. I bought these “supposedly super hot” spices off the internet. I got one bottle each of ground jalapeño, chipotle, hatch and habañero. I tried the hatch the other day and it was alright. Today I tried the chipotle and it was lame. I’m talking super lame. The jalapeño is going to be milder than the others. I guess I just need to try the habañero. I haven’t been all gung-ho about it cause I’ve had bad experiences with that little pepper in the past. Maybe he’s not so big and bad like I’m thinking. The stuff I’ve had before was this goopy concentrate stuff so I’m guessing this ground stuff won’t be quite so mighty. Time will tell. That’s all I can say.
Last night I was so tired. I went to bed early and everything. Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I’ve just been staying up too late lately. Maybe I’m just ready for the weekend.
It’s looking like another PJ’s run tonight. Sevier is heading back home so I guess you might this a bit of a send off. Last night Toll and I hit up Rosie’s Little Italy and it rocked. I need to go back there sometime and I need to tell Walt I liked it.
Today I helped neighbor Steve a bit moving some things to his new house. He and the Mrs. are moving on to bigger and better things. It was most definitely a sweaty day, but Steve bought us Powerade from the gas station, burgers for lunch, and pizza for supper. We finished the day off with a nice round of frizolf. We stopped at the souphouse to grab Sam but ended up snagging Mark instead. Got to see the upstairs of that place. It seems really nice.
I’d have to say that today my final shower was awesome. Most definitely very awesome. Wanna know what’s even more awesome? Oh, of course you do. I’ll be making PJ’s run #2 of the weekend. How’s that for a record setting event? It may be taxing on the pocket book and expanding on the waistline….but seriously, who cares? On a side note, Lofton will be making an appearance and I think this’ll be the first time we’ve seen him since May. It’s been a while.
Well it’s that time of day when I send out some emails, take out the contacts and maybe watch a little TV.
Another sweet PJ’s encounter only we weren’t pickin the tunes. It was however, still a good experience minus a slight time-piece mishap. Afterwards we played a round of frizolf and watched Slackers which ended up being not nearly as cool as I was expecting it to be. Soon Liz will be off to France. I’ve been instructed to keep on her and try to make her come to movie night.
It seems like every once in a while I realize something about myself. Lately it’s been very apparent to me how I get easily frustrated with people when they don’t possess certain skills, experience, amount of maturity or a level of intelligence in something I feel they should be more adequate in. I remember reading something about my personality type with the Myers Briggs test and it said something along those lines about my personality type.
A few of those things that irk me are when people can’t read a map or follow directions, people who are perpetually unorganized and continue to do things that make themselves even more haphazard and disjointed, and when people never have anything thought out or planned ahead. Being a bit of a computer programmer and what I divulged earlier about the way my brain is constantly analyzing stuff this may or may not come as a surprise to you. My main point in talking about this is that I feel like I shouldn’t be so critical of others. Usually I am a somewhat patient person but occasionally I just really get fed up with people. Luckily I rarely show it outwardly, however, this doesn’t mean I don’t need to work on my attitude. A positive note would be that I am aware of this and that’s definitely the first step in solving a problem.
I don’t know about you, but being a moderately chubby kid most of my life, I’ve always loved free food. Seriously, who doesn’t? Scored myself a big panther burger and fries and then got to talk about projectors and various AV-ish setups with some vendor guys all afternoon. It’s always interesting hearing people talk and talk and talk about all kinds of stuff, trying to ‘wow’ you. Maybe I’m weird or skeptical or something, but I’m usually not easily wowed. I heard once it’s a midwest sort of thing. People from those states are much more even-keel and middle of the road than one extreme or the other…don’t know how much stock I put into that.
Well tonight is gonna be another PJ’s night. Unfortunately Toll won’t be in attendance so I’ll have to pour some out for my homies in the form of a dedicated song on the jukebox. First Crickit, now Toll. The good news is that Toll might want to go Sunday. If so I’m most definitely going because then I’ll break my own personal record of going to PJ’s more than once in a 3-4 week period.
Another slow day at work. The plan is for Sam and I to go get TU burgers from the grille. This’ll be his first time. I’m pretty sure he’s been really anticipating this because apparently I talk them up a lot.
I also get told that I’m scary looking, unaproachable, etc. People also seem to think I’m the kind of person to beat people up and stuff. Last night, I saw Brian in the weightroom and he’s like, “Dude - Chalupa! I had a dream about you last night.” Apparently in his dream he sees me from behind and ’something’s going down.’ Either I was beating the crap out of somebody or going to kill somebody or something like that. I’m not that violent…really. However, we also got to make fun of this kid that was in there a while back who would do 3-5 reps of something, then get up and go to the mirror. He then proceeded to roll up his sleeve, flex in the mirror, check himself out, smile and then repeat the whole process. I witnessed this happening for a good 30 to 40 minutes. Quite hilarious.
Well, I should probably get back to work or something like that.
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