All the pizza here in New Hampshire is pretty lame so I’ve had to resort to making my own. Moving to Indiana I thought I was in the doldrums of pizza creativity, boy was I wrong. You should check out the Northeast! Instead of typing, typing, typing about this pizza, I decided to tell a story in pictures instead.
Does anybody else have trouble not seeing Tina Fey whenever Governor Palin is on screen? Fey even has the voice down. This debate came off so much more like a high school debate to me. There were points, counter points, and nobody was interrupting each other. Biden seemed to be at east the whole time and there were definite moments where Palin seemed flustered to me. Biden also seemed to have done his homework and was ready with details, reasons, and statistics for all his answers. I think my favorite part was when he acknowledged Cheney as being quite possibly the most dangerous Vice President our country has seen. Now I can’t wait to see what SNL has for us next week.
I work in the IT profession. I take phone calls and try to help people. I create extensive documentation that makes me go crazy so we can try and avoid some of those phone calls. Whenever I have to call up tech support, which I loathe, I always try to let them know that I’m “in the know” so they might skip some of the rigamorale. Usually they have no idea what I’m talking about because they are script monkeys.
Recently our connection to Al Gore’s greatest gift to the Earth, the WWW, has been extremely slow. Last night she gave out completely and much to my dismay, never came back on. I tried all my tricks to no avail, so I gave Comcast a call after I got home from work.
Script Monkey: “So what’s your problem?”
Chalupa: “Well my internet quit working last night. I’ve tried all the usual stuff. I’ve restarted my computer, released and renewed my IP, reset my modem and router, etc, etc. I’ve even tried plugging directly into the modem and I still can’t get anything.”
Script Monkey: “Ok, I think I can help you.” <papers shuffling>
“What is the operating system of your modem?”
Chalupa: “My modem doesn’t have an operating system. Do you want to know what brand it is?”
Script Monkey: “um, yeah”
Chalupa: “RCA”
<silence>
Script Monkey: “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s supposed to be Vista or something.”
Chalupa: “If you want to know what OS I’m running, I’m on XP with SP3.”
Script Monkey: “Service Pack 3? I’ve never heard of that. Ok I need to you go to your computer and click on your Start button.”
Chalupa: “Ok, are you wanting me to check my IP?”
Script Monkey: “I need you to click on Run. It should be at the bottom.”
Chalupa: “Do you want my IP address?”
Script Monkey: “Ok, now I need you to click on that and hit OK…..oh crap I gotta find the code you have to type.”
Chalupa: “Are you wanting me to check my IP or release it or something?”
Script Monkey: “Oh, here it is. Type in ipconfig…..space….oh wait, no space. Then hit OK”
Chalupa: “Are you wanting the IP address of my modem or my computer or my router?”
Script Monkey: “You don’t see an IP thingy?”
Chalupa: “There is an IP address, but this is the IP of my local machine and my router. Since that’s all internal, it won’t really help you trying to find my modem”
It went on and on like this for a while. And when she was telling me to hit “ok”, there is no ok. Fortunately I was able to decipher what she really wanted and got her the needed info. They kept insisting there was nothing wrong on there end, but after putting me on hold for several minutes, my connection magically started working again. Luckily it only took me 2hrs to get things working. Gotta love the Comcast. How come whenever I call the techies I feel like I ended up helping them more than they helped me?
So after my recent visit to the ER last month I found myself a pulmonologist out here to get some sound lung-advice from. I met with Dr. Ray yesterday and found out the following:
This was all backed up with, “Your lungs sound clear today.”
…
Guess what doctor just lost a new patient. I’ll give you 3 tries.
Mmm-mmmm. That is a tasty burger. Vincent, ever have a Ramon’s Burger?
In my quest for good, cheap food, I’ve been taking my lunch to work every day in what my co-workers have deemed “the working man’s lunch box.” It’s one of the smaller Igloo coolers that are sometimes associated with working men. You know the types - construction workers, carpenters, plumbers, etc.
Today I did not bring my favorite lunch pail so I asked the guys for any lunch suggestions. They listed off a few and I decided I needed to go get something from Ramon. Ramon runs a lunch-wagon here on UNH’s campus. He and his wife have to be some of the friendliest people on this campus. They’ve given me free snacks on several occasions and today is the first time I’ve actually ever bought anything from them.
I decided to go with the bacon cheeseburger and fries. The burgers are cooked on a George Foreman grill so they are dripping in grease. That’s good for my arteries and the burger it rests upon. Everything came in one of those large styrofoam food containers and the whole thing was bulging with fries. This is one of the best burgers I’ve had in a long time. It reminded me of something I’d make at home.
For the modest price of…
Bacon Cheeseburger - $3.50
Fries - $2.00
Total: $5.50
…I was able to stuff myself, not feel sick, and enjoy an amazing lunch. If you haven’t been to Ramon’s, you need to check it out.
Some of you know I love cheese. Really love cheese. I picked up some Danish Blue the other day, and it’s definitely the strongest blue I’ve ever had. A lot of times you eat some blue cheese and you hardly see any veining in it. The stuff I got is probably 80% blue and 20% white. I melted some on top of chicken the other day and tonight I made a grilled cheese with some in it.
Knowing this was going to be strong, I also included some New York cheddar. That’s a bit strong all by itself. It makes my face barely twinge when I eat it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite strong enough to balance out the blue.
I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. I’m trying to think of some innovative ways to use this cheese and not be forced to find something to wash that taste out of my mouth afterwards.
Last night Liz and I checked out the local Texas Roadhouse. This one happened to be located at the Newington mall. The other day at work, some employees came in and gave Liz, and her co-workers, some bread and envelopes to be opened at the restaurant on a particular week. So this gave Liz and I an excuse to go.
If you’re not already familiar with where it’s located, it’s easy to miss. It’s tucked away on a hill in the corner of the parking lot. Depending on which way you’re coming, it’s not hard to drive right on by - especially if the sun is in your eyes.
The food was standard and the service was pretty good. The manager came by to see how everything was, as usual, but he wasn’t creepy, weird, or overbearing. For a few years I used to frequent this establishment in Muncie with a group of friends from college and our server/waitress always tried to sit on my lap…totally unwelcomed. At least I never had an incident like at the Applebee’s in Marion.
So at the end of our meal the manager came by to open our special envelope. He kind of made a big deal out of it and I gave him my best “I care” attitude. So he rips open the thing and plops down a free admission to the local roller skating place. I said, “oh, ok.” He then told me that prize kinda sucks and then gave me a coupon for a free entree next time we come back. Not too shabby.
With the Olympics over and done with, there’s not much to watch on TV anymore, with the exception of the election brouhaha. Tonight I decided I was going to make a lasagna. A good lasagna.
I’ve tried this in the past and it’s never been anything I’d really want to share with anybody. One daring thing I decided to do was use pepperoni for the meat. One reason being I had no sausage or hamburger and chicken seemed just a bit too daring. Here’s my ingredients.
So the first thing you need to do with store-bought sauce is beef it up. I’m not talking about tossing some meat in there, I’m talking about adding some herbs and spices. I always add some garlic, oregano, and basil. Sometimes I toss other things in there. Prepared sauces are always too bland for me. You should also do this in a pot on simmer. I think the heat helps loosen everything up.
While my water was starting to boil I shredded my cheese, sliced my pepperoni as thin as possible, and then washed and cut my mushrooms. If you have one of those egg slicer things, they work great for this. You’ll get nice, uniformly cut mushrooms.
After the noodles were done I drained them and let em cool for a couple minutes. Then I started putting everything together. Some people will tell you a lasagna needs six layers, or seven layers. I never really care how many there are. I just try to use up all my noodles if possible. I did noodles, sauce, mushrooms, pepperoni, ricotta, mozzarella, and then started over. I kept doing that until I filled up my baking dish. You should also put a hefty layer of cheese on top.
I then cooked it at 350 degrees for about an hour. I also made some garlic cheese bread with a fresh Italian loaf, some butter, garlic, and freshly grated Romano. That went into the oven for the last 10 minutes.
I thought it turned out pretty well and Liz was also a big fan. Didn’t take any pictures, but we had a copious amount of leftovers, so maybe I’ll snap a picture later on.
You might remember me ranting a few years ago about Netflix and their shady tactics and keeping down the common-movie-watching-man. Even though I had lots of complaints, I never quit Netflix. It’s just so handy and enjoyable.
Lately, I’ve been waiting quite a few days for some new DVDs to appear and just received an email stating they are having problems with their shipping system, are sorry for the delay, and will be applying a credit to my account.
Now that’s the way to take care of problems and keep customers happy.
I would guess that one of the things people like least is the DMV, BMV, or that place you get your driver’s license. In fact, trips to that place can be downright horrific. This morning I took a trip to my local DMV here in New Hampshire to get what appears to be a photocopy license.
I had heard some stories. They’re changing up the way they do things I guess and now you get a temp license and some central location actually prints the real thing and sends it to you. That just sounds like an opportunity for disaster with mail fraud.
The wait wasn’t too horrible. I got in and out in under an hour. Just had to fill out a short form, give up my Indiana license, show proof of residency (car registration), and show them my passport. Fifty dollars later, I was out the door.
It’s always interesting being in places like this and observing how people act and react to the situation. So far, everybody has been pretty nice to us here in NH, and this statement extends to both the city hall and the DMV. I don’t often utter this phrase, but, nice work government. One interesting circumstance was an elderly woman trying to either get or renew her license. She looked and sounded just like the grandma from Happy Gilmore. I kept picturing her answering the door with a KISS mask on. She wasn’t too happy about having to take the written test. Hopefully she did alright.
If you’re in the same boat as I am, my advice to you sir would be to get there early. Hopefully you’ll beat the long lines that snake around the room.
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