Two Nostrils, One Aggie

Another proud moment from a faithful Ag.

Two Guys One Cup

A Christmas Tradition

Merry Fucking Christmas

I don't know how normal people with large nuclear families do it. I spent a couple of hours yesterday and today doing my final Christmas shopping and I've had an impacted assfull of Christmas. Most of my gifts were purchased online. So, I'm a smartee in that way. But the biggest beat down over the past couple of days was going to the grocery store.

I'm having a couple of friends who have no where else to go over for Christmas dinner. Recently I saw a nice free range turkey breast (I guess the rest of the body is in a coup) at Central Market a few days ago. I almost bought it, but didn't want to have a raw unfrozen turkey in my fridge for more than a day. So I went back to CM yesterday and they were out of those breasts. I went back today and there was no improvement on the turkey breast front. I then went over to the new giant Whole Foods on Preston and Forest. Good Christ is that place nice. It is huge and it doesn't stink of raw fish and patchouli like the one on Greenville. Luckily they had my prized turkey breast. I can't wait for the new Whole Foods in Lakewood to finally get build. Too bad it's looking like early 2009.

One final comment about the holidays. You know it's bad enough to be behind some moron chatting away on their cellphone on the roads. It's 10 times worse at the grocery store. These people are moving slowly in a packed stored full of frantic people that mostly know where they need to go. No so these douchenozzles. They're just slowly moving down an aisle or, even better, just standing in the middle of an aisle while others have to maneuver around them. So, to you Cellphone Talking Grocery Shopping Persons, I give you a hearty Merry Fucking Christmas.

Wally's Pale Ale

I'm not going to lie to you. I was pretty apprehensive about tasting my first attempt at home brewing. Over the years several people have brought their home brew out to Winter League and they have all been dreadful at best. But I had to nut up and find out just how much of a punishment my designated beer pong beer would be.




The first step of tasting any beer is to open the bottle. Unless it's not in a bottle. Luckily my beer was bottled and I was able to accomplish the first step. Upon opening, the beer smelled good. So that was reassuring.


Step 2: Pour the beer. There was very little head and only mild carbonation. I guess I should make a joke about liking a lot of head. But really, this is serious work here and I will not stoop to such juvenile levels of comedy.


Step 3: Taste. Oh my sweet clean baby Jebus -- this is actually good. And I don't mean passable, but actually good. Now I won't say it's great. But it is good enough that I have had at least one bottle each of the past two nights.

Step 4: Share. Even Kat thinks it's good.

Drinking Lakewood: Lakewood Tavern

Shortly after I moved into the Wallagio, almost 4 years ago, the Lakewood Tavern shut down. I had only been in it once -- at the end of a St. Pat's day pub crawl. I remember liking it. But, admittedly, it was at the end of the crawl. So I was in no state to judge it properly.

So when Trent notified me that he thought it had reopened, I wanted to check it out quickly.

The place hasn't changed much. The tables and chairs are quite a bit higher toned. And the animal heads have been replaced with a giant projection TV. They are definitely going for an older, higher income crowd. A couple of nice couches are also available for sitting.

In stark contrast to the Capital Grill which was packed on a Tuesday one month after opening, the Tavern had only a couple of patrons.

Food wise, the place is ok. My pulled pork sandwich was good while I was told by the Jester that the hamburger was nothing special. Beer wise, well here's where I have a problem. They have two beers on tap -- Newcastle and Boulevard Hefe. That's an odd twosome in my mind -- a second tier import and a Hefe that has only been introduced to this area.

It's a nice place that probably still in shakedown. But please get some more taps.

Seriously, someone needs to open a bar somewhere with a nice variety of American Microbrews.

Hold that thought.....

C but I'll check back in a few..

6326 La Vista Dr Dallas, TX 75214

Renamed Rides at Six Flags

With the announcement today that Six Flags over Texas hopes to sell beer next year, I propose these names for some of the rides (past and present).

• The Big Bender
• The Bed Spinnaker
• Long Island Ice Tea Cups
• The Runaway Mind Eraser
• Irish Bumper Car Bombs
• Cyrus Cosmo's Rotoricutini
• Labatt's Riverboat Ride

There Really Is Nothing Better Than Christmas in Dallas

Except, maybe, this video:

For the Blogger Who Has Everything

This would be a nice Christmas gift for your favorite blogger.

Eating Dallas: Sangria

When the lovely Lidia suggested we go to a topless bar the other night I was fully on board. Unfortunately my hearing isn't as good as it once was and we instead ended up at Sangria -- a tapas bar.

We started out with something from each of their columns. Cold tapas -- tuna tartar with crushed hazelnuts, anchovy, olive dressing and crunchy pears. Sound good? It was very tasty. From the sea -- scallops with creamy potato puree. They were scallops, so they were good, but not great. From the land -- grilled kobe beef. Again, good, but not the flavor orgasm (that's probably not the best choice of words) that I was expecting from my previous Kobe experience at York St. From the garden -- tortilla espanola. This was much better than I had gotten at Cafe Madrid. And the accompanying aoli was fantastic. From their specials menu -- clams with stuff. Well, it's not on their online menu so I forget what was in them. But they were good.

We were still hungry and could not decide between the duck confit and the shrimp and crabmeat croquettes. So we got both. The confit was great. I declared it the best (following the tuna tartar) of all the dishes we had. The croquettes were just ok.

Add on top of all of this a generous pitcher of sangria, and this was a very pleasant evening.

B+
4524 Cole Avenue Dallas, Texas 75205

Diving Dallas: The Dallasite

I've been trying to figure out what to say about The Dallasite Club. On the one hand it is an old school bar serving average American beer and average American greasy bar food. But the place was way too bright and too loud. But this is just not someplace I would want to go in my twilight years (watch it!!) to drown away my last few memories Alzheimers has left me with.

On the plus side, at least on the night I went, it had quite a few attractive women (probably nurses from nearby Baylor). So, if you're into that sort of thing, you might like it. But, seriously, there should be no attractive women in a dive bar. I don't make the rules.


C

3239 Ross Ave. Dallas, Texas 75204

Diving Dallas: Pasttime Tavern

Now this is a dive -- dark, dank, smelling of 50 year old spilled beer.

The Pasttime Tavern was opened in 1937, and by the looks of it they have the original pooltable. And sitting at the bar appeared to be some of the original customers as well. I dare anyone to find any signage in this place that was put up after the birth of The Jester.

To seal the deal as a genuine dive, The Pasttime has both Schlitz and Pabst Blue Ribbon (in cans) on the beer menu.

So, when the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone -- think Pasttime.

A
1503 S Ervay St Dallas, TX 75215

Winter League 2008: Week 2

I don't want to brag or anything, but I single handily brought my team back from a 13-8 deficit to defeat the evil team that Peach (We're From France) is on 15-14. (BTW. Whose idea was it to make games to 15 this year??? That's way to much. I only want to play a handful of points a game not a handful of points a half.) How did I do this, you ask. Well I left and headed over to start getting ready for Bad Santa. Missing my ill-advised hucks and even iller-advised short passes, my team was able to overcome my atrocious offense and even more atrocious defense (although I did have a lay-out D in the endzone -- even thought it was technically an strip not called. A younger Steve would have made the call himself. But this is me being a savvy Dallas Veteran ie an asshole) to win. Good work guys. But can you do it with me next time.

But my main focus on Saturday was to reprise my role of Bad Santa and raise much needed funds to the North Texas Food Bank. As you can see, it's a tought gig. And yes I do like my gig even if that's not the question.

However exhausted


I was able to rally

to corrupt another generation.

The New Phonebook is Here! The New Phonebook is Here!

In the 21st Century, the equivalent of Navin Johnson's exclamation about how he is finally someone since he's in the new phonebook is "Hey, you can see my house on Google!". Dallas has finally been added to Google's StreetView. So not only am I finally somebody, but so is Dallas.

More Acorns for the Rest of Them

I'm sitting on my couch, finishing up a technical quiz from a prospective employer, when I hear -- BOOM!!! And just as quickly all the lights, radio, WiFi network, heat, everything went out. On this dreary, cold day, my house went dark and silent. Clearly a transformer in my alley and exploded rendering my block as powerless as my ability to come up with a fitting metaphor.
Well, this was as good a time as any to head up to Bally's and work out. So I showered in the dark and headed out. And there, lying in my alley, was the very 3 dimensional squirrel that caused all this. I did the electroshock math, figuring that most of the dead squirrels in my alleyway are very 2-D.
When I got back, not only had the lights come back on, but the sad remains of the perpetrator were taken away. That TXU Energy is a full service power company.
BTW. This is not a picture of the squirrel. Since he was taken away before I got back I was unable to take a picture. This was just one of many picutres of dead squirrels I found on the internet. Good Times.

I Read this in Poof!

Bonus points for mentioning the Cornballer.

I Know More About Wine Than You

One of the singularly great moments during my walkabout was sitting on the deck of the Three Rivers Grill, enjoying the cool dry clear beautiful Oregon day, looking out at the Columbia River Gorge and sipping one of Oregon's fine Pinot Noirs -- O'Reilly's. So nice was this wine that when I got home I got online and ordered several bottles. I only got them just before Thanksgiving since they would not ship unless it was less than 80° here in Dallas.

Today I'm thumbing through the October issue of Food and Wine (it had gotten lost in the pile of mail from said walkabout and I'm just now getting to it) there is a small blurb about quality cheap reds from Oregon. And guess what they mention. Go ahead, guess. That's right O'Reilly's Pinot Noir.

Bad Santa

We're doing Bad Santa again this Saturday. I mention this merely for the opportunity to show me with actual women. Plus JT is asking for more pix of women. Sorry, JT, that the Jester is in the pic. I didn't have time to photoshop him out.

And in related news, this story is not about my Bad Santa since he only mentions oral.

What the Hell Is Wrong With Me??

Every time I hear my phone ring and I don't recognize the number, my lifeforce gets drained. Why? I decided this week I need to really really really start looking for a job. I've updated my resume on Monster, CareerBuilder and DICE. So that's a recruiter calling. And I'm still not 100% convinced I need a job. Well, I need one. I just don't want to have to go to it and work. I know I've written about this before. But if you people (not that anyone is reading this since my long November drought) would do your part and click on my adds and buy something. Or better yet, if you enjoy this, how about a couple hundred bucks a month from each of you. No? Yeah, then this would be like a job and I would never write anything.

Ok. Gotta go. I've got some calls to return.

Winter League 2008: Week 1

I had hoped to have something in my bag. But, hey, I suck. And week 1 was pre-season anyways.

But my first impressions are.

• I like my team Lord and Lady Douchebag. Surprisingly there are no douchebags. Although, to paraphrase a famous saying, if you look around and don't see a douchebag, then you may be the douchebag. That may be true since I did yell at a child the first week.
• If global warming is going to continue to give us nice days like this, then I am going to go back to incandescent light bulbs.
• Do we really need high schoolers drinking discs??
  

More Peach.


No one photographs people just standing around better than me. Suck it Pokie.


Some big headed dog.


Sunderland uncharacteristically hucking.


Peach thinks she's Madonna.

Next week: Bad Santa Returns.

Adventures In Homebrew

As part of my quest to discover my passions, I've decided to take up home brewing. Now when anyone has offered up some homebrew to me it's been pretty much terrible beer. So I'm expecting extremely undrinkable liquid to emerge from this first batch. So undrinkable, in fact, that it will be the go-to beer for all future Wallagio hosted BeerPong.



Cool my wort, if you know what I mean.


Freshly yeasted wort. That's what she said.


Beer being made. Thank you yeast.


I forgot to take pictures of the bottling process. The beer will be ready to drink one week from today. So mark your calendars. And if you're wondering, it's a pale ale.

If You've Ever Asked, "What's a FUPA?"

I forgot about this picture I took at the Baylor/OSU game. My only question is why was Mangino scouting two teams he wasn't going to play the rest of the year?

How Is This Not a National Holiday?

Thanks to the geniuses at Dewars, I learned that today was the day in 1933 that Prohibition was repealed.

Happy Repeal Day everyone!!

Cool Pic of the Day: North Dallas 1959

Frontburner alerted me to this website. This is US75 looking south from Walnut Hill. I added some street names for reference. In the upper left you can see the old Dr Pepper plant. Also note the golf course that is now The Village.

DVD Review: Futurama the Movie: Bender's Big Score

Like The Family Guy before it, canceled Fox cartoon Futurama has been resurrected -- this time in a series of DVDs that will eventually been shown episodically on Comedy Central.

Unfortunately this story is a complicated time travel tale with everyman hero Fry going, once again, back to that fate New Years Eve 1999 day when he fell into the cryogenic chamber. So I won't be describing it. The other part of the story involves a race of Internet scammers that takes over the Earth and how the gang gets the Earth back. Ooops, hope that wasn't a spoiler.

Personally, I was entertained. Futurama is heavy on Dennis Miller Factor Funny (Dennis Miller Factor: The humor in a joke is inversely proportional to the number of people that get the joke. Only one person gets a joke, it is infinitely funny to that person.) There were many "Hmmph, that was funny" moments, but few out load laughs.

A- For Futurama Fans

B- All others.

Merry Fucking Christmas

I finally broke down and did some Christmas shopping today. Of course it was online. But it's the thought that counts, right? I hope everyone likes crap!!

In related Christmas News you can Use, Dirty Bad Santa will be making his annual appearance out at Winter League this Saturday. Bring cash if you want a picture with him or you just want a tug off of his Makers bottle. All money goes to the North Texas Food Bank. Which I hear is having a hard time of it this year.

Quadruple (Bypass) Your Pleasure

This deep fried cheeseburger is part of the Cardiologist Full Employment Diet invented by Willie's relatives over in North Kilt Town. You should see what they can do with a re-aligned phase coil.

Yeah, But I Still Would

Eating Dallas: Morton's The Steakhouse

I'm not going to lie to you. I like meat. And there is no finer form of meat than prime aged beef served at a premium steakhouse. And if my first experience at Morton's is any indication, this may be the top of the top of the top.
The original plan was to swing by Morton's before a Stars game for drinks. Well, I thought, if we're here for drinks (I had my customary Bombay Saphire Martini which was perfect) then we should also have some appetizers. Crabcakes (of course) and tuna tar-tar were ordered. Prime rib finger sandwiches were also served as part of Morton's happy hour. The crabcakes were nearly 100% crab -- and big chunks of crab at that. And, while I would say they were very good, they were not quite up to the level of III Forks or it's sister, Silver Fox. The tuna tar-tar, on the other hand was fantastic. It was presented on a tower of tangy tomatoes and avacado. The prime rib sandwiches were also very good and made me want to return for an after game meat snack.
And that is exactly what we did. Following the Stars game, the Lovely Lidia and I returned to Mortons and split a porterhouse steak, potatoes lyonnaise and grilled asparagus. The aparagus was perfectly grilled with a perfect addition of a balsamic reduction. The potatoes were just about the best I've ever had. Potatoes, bacon and onions -- could there be a more perfect "vegitable" dish. But these are just sides and thus barely count.

The steak,
was
awesome.

The strip side was flavorful, tender and even borderline buttery in tecture. The filet side melted in my mouth like a Listerine Breath strip. (I am a wordsmith, kneal before me). And Alex assures me the bone part was a delight.

If you're like me and enjoy good food -- Morton's is for you.

A+

501 Elm St Dallas, TX 75202

DVD Review: Cannibal Holocaust

Called by some as the most notorious movie of all time, I discovered Cannibal Holocaust via my obsession with List Universe (now featured as a sidebar) and its Top 15 Most Disturbing Movies. This list appeared about a month ago. So, I added it to my Netflix queue and forgot about it. Well imagine my surprise when this appeared in my mailbox instead of the expected Season 1 disk of How I Met Your Mother. Go ahead, imagine it. I'll wait.

BTW. Stay tuned for my public marriage proposal to Canada's #1 export, Cobie Smulders.

Well this is easily the worst movie I've ever seen.
From the comments on List Universe and IMDB, this movie was presented as a "Blair Witch" type movie only made two decades earlier. A documentary crew comprised of four Americans go deep into a South American jungle to do a documentary about cannibal tribes residing in the jungle. Of course they are never heard from again. So an NYU anthropologist goes to find out what happened to them, discovers the film they took and brings it back to America. The last half of the movie is made up largely of him showing the film to some studio executives who still want to make a documentary about what happened to those four people. We are then presented with a cavalcade of atrocities committed by the film crew until the natives have had enough and kill and eat the crew one by one.


When this movie first came out, it was thought that actual people were killed in it. I don't know why anyone thought this. All of the violence against humans looks extremely fake. The worst being the disemboweling of one of the film crew. It essentially looks like a garbage bag filled with organs sliced open. The violence against animals, however, is all too real. There is about a 5 minute interlude in which a tortoise is killed and sliced apart. Also killed on screen-- a snake, a monkey, a pig and a raccoon-like animal.

• breasts too many to count
• way too many man parts
• 1 turtle execution
• 1 impaled woman
• 1 castration
• 1 monkey brain appetizer
• tree-people fu
• cannibal fu

F-



King Wally says avoid at all cost.