5.27.2007

Buffalo Soldier

Well, maybe not, but we had buffalo meat last night. I bought it two days ago at a somewhat local Amish store where I buy chicken, pork and the occasional dairy product. Reason for buying from the Amish? Funny you should ask. They do not use pesticides in their produce, hormones or antibiotics in their meats and the distance traveled to market is not too far. If thinking locally and acting globally is what people intend to endorse, the Amish have made a career of that by selling to people like me. Oh, and another small factor influences my decision to buy from them--TASTE. Are you kidding me?! The chicken ACTUALLY tastes like chicken and pork, like pork. We had pernil yesterday for lunch and all I can say is WOW! Seriously, it was frikkin amazing. Anyway, back to the buffalo. It was a 1lb of ground buffalo meat. L and I thought it would be a good idea to make burgers with it. She seasoned it up with the following: Adobo, Mrs Dash, Worcestershire sauce, vidalia onions, yellow bell pepper and red bell pepper. Cooked on medium (due to the meat being extremely lean)...basically "slow and low" on a grill pan on top of the stove. Then the moment of truth came. She was MUCH MORE nervous than I was. I had been reading about buffalo meat for some time and just never found a location that had OR a location where it even looked good. So, I took a bite first and it was great! L even liked it and that was nice to see since I tend to be more of risk-taker with atypical foods. We only ate one each because they are pretty filling and the burgers were not that big; big enough for a nice wheat bun. The 1lb of meat yielded about 7-8 patties. I will buy it again, but I do think it is very important to get that type of meat from a reputable seller because we are not talking about something that you can find every week and you don't want your experience (if you have never tasted it) to be a bad one due to a lower grade product. The taste was not game-y (like venison) at all and I highly recommend you get your hands on some buffalo. It does have a distinct taste that is kind of tough to describe, but it really is a nice mild taste. The Amish store only had ground buffalo, but I would like to try some ribs or a tenderloin one of these days, but I have probably hit my buffalo meat quota for the next month, but I will definitely eat it again.

5.23.2007

Another athlete who should just shut his mouth...

Here we go again...Unless you have been under a rock and those of you who do not follow pro US sports might as well stay under your rocks, you have no doubt heard the latest episode of controversy surrounding Atlanta Falcons QB, Michael Vick. Of course, it does not help him that another pro player who plays for the Washington Redskins, Clinton Portis who went to THE U and that is already a strike against him basically says that people need to "mind their own business" since the story came out about the ALLEGED dog fighting compound that was found at one of Vick's houses in VA. Mind their own business? Are you kidding me?! These friggin millionaires truly believe they rule the world and anyone questioning anything they do should just get out of their way. Amazing. I am as passionate a sports fan as the next guy, but I will not sit around and really believe that just because a guy can throw a ball 100yards or run a 4.2 40 that he is above the law and that the media is just picking on him. Please!

On the one hand I absolutely agree with Charles Barkley doing that Nike commercial several years ago and saying that "Parents should be role models" and that he was not one, but the fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of thousands of horrible parents out there that kids cannot even count on and they try to find other sources of inspiration. Pro Athletes will undoubtedly fall into that category and many of these stupid guys fail to appreciate that fact and are only out for themselves and try to live the SAME life they did BEFORE they were as famous as they currently are. Bunch of idiots! Again, I love sports, but I have NEVER and will NEVER put these guys on a pedestal that many people do. They bleed just like me. Put a mic in their grills and they pop off like a bunch of low class pieces of trash. I laugh at those stories that come out many years after many of these pros are not in the spotlight anymore and they are broke and/or in major trouble with the law. True emptiness inside.

The ATL needs a new field general!

5.16.2007

The Genius of a Car Dealership

I had to bring the Mazda in yesterday morning for a recall (a computer module update and a separate fan wiring issue). I had about an hour to kill. I brought my notebook to spend some time catching up on news and other events. To my dismay, there was no wireless connection to be utilized. I asked one of the sales guys on the showroom floor about this and he says, "You are the 4th person to ask me about this today." I said, "Well, it is 2007 and people expect these things." He says, "I know what you mean. We are the only building without it. You should try VW." This is a pretty big collection of dealers where I brought the car to. From Hummer to Vdub, to GMC and Mercedes. There is a grouping of various buildings. Mazda is next to VW, so I walked over there after shooting the ish with the Mazda salesguy talking about what is in the future for Mazda vehicles and things like that. Well, VW's connection was down! Man, I was kind of pissed. Oh well. It was a nice day and I just decided to walk around and peep the rides and absorb the sticker shock of various models. The funny thing to me was that you had all these vehicles 18K-60K in a dirt (with plenty-o-rocks) lot and sporadic potholes and things like that. I even caught some of the porters pushing these cars to the rpm limit as they made their way to the prep area building to clean up the rides so that people could take delivery of their new cars. That whole situation just further confirmed my distrust of people who have access to my car keys. I NEVER get valet. I always stay at the mechanic shop if my car needs work unless it happens to be a situation in which 3+ hrs will be involved. Fortunately, it's been a few years that that has happened. I just know many people have no regard for property that is not their own and that is pretty sad.

5.12.2007

Heartless Criminal

I was doing a rare thing last night and that was watching TV. I caught this story and I was truly upset in the sense of having a heart filled with emotion that went from a high level of anger to sadness for the man (Mr. Sims) involved in that truly unfortunate circumstance of getting carjacked by some 22year old coward who beat Mr. Sims (who is 91 years old) and stole his Malibu. How does a kid have so much disregard for an elder that he would take the time to beat that person just to get in their car and drive away with a complete lack of conscience or respect in anyway? Man, the video is absolute sadness and I was just playing the scene in my mind over and over again and thinking if that were my grandfather how enraged I would be. Seriously, I would need to be restrained in a courtroom because anything in my reach would immediately make its way to the body of the attacker. This stupid coward (Deonte Edward Bradley) has been charged and I hope the judge throws the book at him and this idiot gets destroyed in jail. I think paying for him to rot in a jail cell is not really any significant payback for what he did, but he'll get his in a very bad way. I don't know about how the prison culture deals with guys who beat the elderly and am not sure if it is on the same level of a pedophile or anything like that because I know guys who do that are moving targets in jail (as they should be!) and I really hope this coward gets to be some inmates punching bag because he deserves nothing good and is pure evil. I read news everyday, but this is one of those stories that pissed me off enough to post on it.

5.07.2007

Trip to IKEA

Today, we were both off from work and IKEA was the planned destination. My sister-inlaw has never been, so this was a new experience for her. We also took M for the day that we knew would be long. We arrived shortly after they opened for the day (just after 10am) and it was nice in that it was pretty relaxing and not the usual madhouse that I have come to expect. I knew there were a few items I was ready to purchase and of course, we even bought a few things we had no intentions of purchasing, but at the prices of so many items being quite low, it worked out fine and still below the agreed upon budget. None of us lost our minds and just blindly bought things as a few people we noticed there doing.

The one interesting thing about today's trip was to the IKEA Restaurant. I have never been there. Usually a trip meant getting items and leaving since that usually took several hours, but we decided to try out the food today. Man, I was really impressed. Maybe it was because it was early and everyone was eager to do a good job, but the workers were cool and pretty helpful. I got a fresh mozzarella and roasted pepper panini and a lox salad with a bowl of vegetable soup. L got the same panini. J got Swedish meatballs, potatoes and steamed vegetables. The desert was excellent as well. Pieces of torts and cakes at super low prices that were good quality. The Swedish coffee was bangin'. I would eat there again in a heartbeat. As a totally unanticipated bonus, we got this pear flavored sparking juice that reminded me of CocoRico and I have NO IDEA how that happened, but it did and it had no coco of any type within it. It was a product of Spain and it was just one of those things that just sets of memories as I hope some of you can relate to. Very weird how the environment triggers thoughts and feelings about certain experiences. Either way, the trip was a success and the Restaurant is very good.