beer and billiards

Scott met me at Shakespeare's to play pool, and so I could knock a few beers off my list.  I liked the name of this one, and then I liked the bottle even more.  Katy and I were just talking about how important the cover of a book is and how the image can make or break the book before you even pick it up.  This of course flies in the face of the whole, "don't judge a book by the cover" thing, but we both agreed it's true so get over it.

And talk about a well named beer, I can think of no better way to describe it than robust.

I needed to eat before I could play pool so I was already on to my second beer before we even started.

Sticking to the theme of picking my beer by the name I went with "old engine oil".  It wasn't bad, it was supposed to have a chocolate flavor that I didn't get quite as much as with some of the others I've tried, but it wasn't bad.  I would get it again if I saw it on a menu somewhere, mostly because I'll remember the name.

Anyways, I blame the beer (and the racking) for the travesty that occurred on the billiards table that evening...

I guess I forgot the part where Scott was some kind of pool hustler.  If the games didn't cost a dollar each, and go by in a matter of minutes, I would have stayed longer and tried to improve my craft.  Unfortunately this blood bath was over before it even really began.

I'll redeem myself next time.

somebody has good taste

The guy in the red one flew past my car initially but quickly braked and then reversed in to that spot next to me.  I've seen a few of my car in traffic but this was the first real life encounter I've had.

It was kind of weird but overall not a bad experience.  There was lots of hemming and hawing over gas mileage and idiosyncrasies of the vehicle.  Apparently he gets on average like 3 miles more to the gallon than I get, and he claimed that he drove it aggressively while I try to drive responsibly when I can.

Now I'm always on the lookout for this foxy red version of my car, if it weren't for the older gentleman who drives it we would be just like this:



Except I guess these aren't the same cars, and I would want to be Famke...so it's not really like that at all, I just wanted an excuse to post that clip.

the end of the line

It was every bit as ominous and foreboding in person.  That's a wall of rain you see in the distance and it just moved directly over the mainland in a matter of minutes.

The owners of this piece of waterfront land on the main road through Siesta finally caught wise to everyone parking there and watching the sunset so they put up a fence.  Now there is just this sad road to nowhere left.

I am going to try Ft. Lauderdale one more time.  I'm torn between fool me once shame on you, and third times a charm.  I figure if I still can't get a place after this round then I can't argue with three strikes your out.

I have gotten really addicted to this game while I've been mastering the art of killing time.  It takes me back to the days when I had an office job and discovering new games like that would have been all that kept me sane.  Now I can't think of the last time I played a nice flash game online.

I think I like them because they remind me of old school video games.  They usually only rely on a couple buttons, or just the mouse, the premise is easy to understand, and they are addicting.  Like the angry birds craze.  There is something nice about being able to pick up a game and immediately understand it.  I recently got the Goldeneye that they had rereleased for the wii and ended up not even being able to play it because it was too complicated and too dark to see what was going on unless I played it in the dead of night with no other lights on.  Just give me a bird flying at a pig that has barricaded itself inside a makeshift fort.  Is that so much to ask?

Now I want to go play video games while I wait for my video tour from Rob.

how am I here again?!

Yeah yeah beautiful, yeah yeah summer fun in the sun.

I'm over it.

It goes a little something like this:

the Legacy Trail and Jonathan

This is a section of the Legacy Trail that runs past my Dad's, where I go walking frequently.  It's a biking/walking trail that they put in place of an old set of train tracks that used to run along here.

What's weird for me is that these were the same train tracks that used to run behind our house, so I would have walked along this path when I was a kid except it was along railroad ties instead of pavement.

Thinking about the old train tracks also now makes me think of Jonathan and the time I told him about one of my childhood traditions.  So Sarasota has a long history with the circus, and still does.  When I was a kid the railroad tracks behind our house were still in use and every year at the start of the circus season the Ringling Brother's train would go past our house on these tracks.

So I'm telling Jon about how I remember every year going out back to watch the train go past because you could see the animals in the box cars.  Mostly it was just a flash of zebra pattern through the windows of the car, but there were other fun ones to look out for like the giraffes who's car had an open top so they could stick their head out and look around.  Jon thought this sounded very cool, and lost in the excitement of it all said, "wow that's so incredible, I can't believe you could see all the different animals, could you see the clowns too?"

I die.  Seriously it still cracks me up.  I think I said something like, "well I don't think they make the clowns travel in cages and pretend to be clowns, I think they are allowed to take passenger trains".

The more I think about it though the more I like the image of a car full of clowns like leaning out the windows waving balloon animals and spraying seltzer water at the onlookers.  That would be the greatest show on Earth.

Anyways, as if I wasn't already thinking fondly of Jon I came across some nice purple flowers that I enjoyed in his honor:

So thank you Jon, for putting a smile on my face during my lonely afternoon walk.

<3

your missing barbie for August

Finally!  I was getting a little tired of all the sweeping ball gowns that seemed to be her tastes for the past few months.  I'm glad to see that she's finally back in something costume worthy.  Of course this would be the costume for Ms. Scarlet.

Speaking of which...




That's for you Dan.

I feel like August Barbie gives me hope for this month, even if she is setting an unrealistic standard for beauty.

shoes!

I have been eyeballing these shoes all summer.  I went in to my favorite shoe store of all time, Terra Plana, to have a gander back in June when I was in nyc and was EXTREMELY in to both of these pairs.  Unfortunately they were a bit out of my price range at the time so I could only hold them longingly in the corner of the store for a while, too afriad to try them on for fear of falling further in love with them.

But the best thing about Terra Plana is that they get new shoes in pretty frequently and the old ones go on sale.  And we aren't talking about an insignificant sale either, the sales are usually pretty amazing.  The problem is that people are starting to learn about this store (I saw two different people wearing shoes from here on this trip to NYC) so you have to check back frequently if you want to snag the shoes of your dreams on sale.

So this time I was in ny I was very excited to find that all of the shoes I had been looking at were on sale.  Thankfully these two were the only ones that they still had in my size which helped me narrow down my options, but even so how was I supposed to choose between these two?  They were both amazing for such different reasons.

Can you guess which ones I picked?