Goodbye Stereotypes O'Bennigans

Bennigan's is apparently closing all of its restaurants nationwide. I found the food there to be ok, but I always enjoyed it because it had very little to do with all things Irish. For instance, the Turkey O'Toole had nothing Irish about it except for the fact that they tacked O'Toole on the end of it. Pretzel Roll, turkey and honey mustard doesn't scream Irish to me.

In my younger days, I enjoyed the incredibly unhealthy Monte Cristo sandwich (like the Red Robin Royal burger, the actual nutritional information is not available anywhere). Unline Monte Cristo sandwiches where the bread is basically french toast, this was a breaded and deep fried club sandwich. I'd always order it, always try to eat it all and midway through the third of the four triangles of goodness, feel completely awful.

In tribute to Bennigan's, I penned this today over my lunch. (to the tune of American Pie... how un-fitting for a tribute)

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How those Irish stereotypes made me smile.
And I knew if I had my choice
That I'd speak in a bad Irish voice
And eat some greasy food for a while.

But July 29 made me shiver
When the news was delivered.
Was it potato famine?
How could this have ever happened?

I do remember that I cried
When I heard they crushed the Irish pride,
I was burned deep inside
The day that Bennigans died.

So bye-bye, Irish stereotypes
No more deep-fried club sandwiches,
Or Turkey O'Tooles.
My arteries were not quite as crushed,
Singin', "maybe now he won't die."
"maybe now he won't die."

Me = failing at blogging

John Blog, creator of blogs, would be very disappointed in me. Apparently, April is national forget about your blog month. All of my 3 readers (special shoutout to my spiderman-loving college roomate for his devoted reading and commenting) have surely been saddened by my incompetence and laziness.

Since coming back from Florida last month, I've gone to Washington DC, back to Florida (St. Pete) and spent a week in California (San Francisco and Mountain View.) The trips provided a lot of interesting adventures and good food. I ate on the beach in Clearwater, Fla., had some amazing polenta in Washington DC and FINALLY had In-N-Out Burger while in California. (Twice in the week I was out there.) While the travel is tiring, the interesting new things I see always make it worth it. I especially love the opportunity to try different restaurants and local specialties.

I've also been spending time fixing up our house to try to sell it. You can track progress at: http://metrodetroitstarterhome.blogspot.com/ I mainly made the blog because I figured out that Blogger.com gets pretty good SEO and by creating this blog, if you google "starter home metro Detroit" the blog comes up as the third listing and if you search "metro Detroit starter home" it comes up second. Who knows if it will help, but it's going to be a fun little experiment.

In other news, the Tigers are finally back on track, the Pistons are doing their normal up and down playoff run and the Wings look to have a good chance to bring home the Stanley Cup. Should be an interesting spring in the D.

Sorry to all the loyal readers for not updating, let's hope I'm back on the blog bus now.

Twitter me this, twitter me that, who's afraid of the Tigers' bats?

So basically I'm famous. Well, not really. Today, I twittered live updates for Mlive at the Tigers' game. It was a lot of fun, until the Tigers lost.

Here's my stream, reversed to chronological order beginning with my first tweet.

greetings from comerica, game time temp is 59 degrees and the crowd cheers

a fan is confused that dombrowski plays for the tigers and bought a dombrowski jersey

great start, after going 0-2 on swisher, willis walks him

big boy wasn't too good with details today and i ended up with some bun-on-bun action in my double decker burger

cabrera flies out with two on and an old man in toledo muttered "hessman would have ate that up"

mvp 5 games in is clete thomas

jacque jones actually does something good... crowd is in shock

inge doubles in jacque and the tigers lead 1-0

ozuna, how about no-zuna!

dontrelle with the slowest pick-off throw ever

dontrelle with a no-hitter through 3, I'm a one-man curse machine

mullet in a hot-orange scrunchie sighting

quentin a few feet away from putting the white sox up 3-1, one pitch later, he grounds into a dp to get willis out of the jam

quentin's revenge as he guns to double renteria off first after a pudge fly-out

guy wearing a renteria no. 11 t-shirt obviously right after the trade and before the t-shirt maker realized 11 is sparky's number

inge homers to left, he's making a case to keep an everyday role when granderson returns, maybe in left?

ok, the no-hitter joke isn't looking so funny now when he still has it after 5

little kid in front of us has dippin dots... when will dippin dots be the ice cream of the present instead of the ice cream of the future?

some guy participating in the wave wearing two orange fists from the souvenir stand... hilarious
dontrelle has allowed no hits, but a bevy of walks

thome breaks up the no-hitter and the shutout... sigh

pandering to the little kid behind us who has been yelling "pull him!" leyland brings in miner

tie game...

mark champion level of pessimism has befallen CoPa

sac fly... sox lead

inge is batting .400, watch out ted Williams

had no idea francis beltran had been called up

beltran puts grilli to shame

boone logan sounds like davey crockett's cousin or a character from a gary paulsen book

inge just misses another

polanco needs to recapture the power of the overgrown temples and get a hit sometime

a young fan is braving the chilly night to show off his guns via cut-off granderson t-shirt

beltran looking more and more like a keeper

spoke too soon... dye homers

magglio gidp... i want to cry

announcement about kids running the bases tomorrow night after the game.... at midnight???

bautista throwing well, hopefully i don't curse him like i did beltran

white sox have 3 hits and are up 5-3... ridiculous

jacque jones is the only hope... not looking good

love fielders indifference

bobby fats can't throw a strike

time for clete to make up for that error

blah good play by crede, tigers are 0-5

just saw fans swigging liquor on the ramp, it's that bad

highlight of the day, a guy juggling drumsticks while playing the xylophone outside the stadium


So yeah, the Tigers are 0-5, sound the panic. I'm going to go cry now.

Finally wrapping up the vacation

Sorry for no updates, coming back from vacation I had a lot to catch up on.

So as I'm sure you've all been waiting for, here's the final food review.


Food review, day 6 (a week plus late)


Breakfast and lunch aren't exciting, it was McDonalds for breakfast and a sandwich before the Tigers game that day.


After the game, we went for a Florida tradition and must if you are in the Lakeland area... Parksdale Farm Market strawberry shortcake. I don't even like strawberries and I love this stuff. The shortcake is like crack it's so good. But it becomes like a highly-refined, white collar crack when you let it soak up all the strawberry sauce, ice cream and whipped cream. Parksdale's doesn't look like much visually, but the shortcake is amazing and well worth the trip over to Plant City.


Dinner was Five Guys Burgers and Fries, which I'd previously had at one of the original locations in Alexandria, Virginia. They are now being franchised all over and one went up in Lakeland since the last time we had been there. The atmosphere isn't as good as the originals, but the food is still uniquely good. I had a burger without a lot of toppings because I was still recovering from shortcake. The handcut fries are great, especially the extra portions they give you.

The last day wasn't much to write about, breakfast in the room, Quiznos in the terminal and back home to Michigan. Jones the dog was sure happy to see us and we were glad to be home. Good things lie ahead and the time in Florida was great for a re-charge. Now let's all sing kumbayah together.

You're in potato salad row!

In game promotions are always entertaining and the ones here in Lakeland for Tigers spring training don't disappoint. One of the favorites is "dooooooooogggg row!" where everyone (check that, only 11, apparently for rows with more than 11 people puts Joker Marchant over budget) in the row gets a hot dog. Last night when we found out that not everyone got a hot dog, we thought about starting our own competing promotion. We had passes for an all-you-can-eat buffet for season ticket holders. It was open an hour after the game started, so we could have conceivably gone back and gotten our own hot dogs for our own "dooooogggg row!" or our own "hamburger row." Then we started taking it a little further based on other items from the buffet and by far the best was "pooooootato salad row!" Imagine the announcement, "If you're in section 105, row 6, you're in pooooootato salad row!" And everyone says a collective "noooooooooooo!" A elementary school-style lunch lady would appear with a little scoop and all patrons in the row would be forced to put their hands out and get a big scoop of potato salad. This idea is going to make me rich.

I'm behind on a few days of food reviews, so here we go.

Food review, day 5
Another boring breakfast and lunch of cheerios and turkey sandwiches. Everything was saved until dinner, when we tried Jimbo's Pit Barbecue, one of the better-known barbecue joints in Lakeland. As we had read before going, you don't go to Jimbo's for a beautiful atmosphere. The bathrooms are out back and apparently not the most sanitary, but if you do go out back, you can see the smoking pit. I had the pork plate with baked beans, fries and hush puppies. The beans were great, the fries and hush puppies were adequate. The pork was fairly good, not the best I've had, but very good. Overall, a great experience and the laid-back, down-home vibe at the place is great.

Food review, day 6
I love pancakes, therefore I love IHOP. We had a late breakfast at the good old International House O' Pancakes, which for me consisted of a half order of corn cake pancakes (great w/ the butter pecan syrup) and chocolate chip pancakes (just ok) with some eggs. I was so full, I didn't even eat lunch when my wife did at the outlet mall. I ended up eating a turkey sandwich in the afternoon and then our dinner was the aforementioned buffet. I had a burger, a little bit of potato salad and some chips. Not great, but free.

Food review, day 4

We went to Sea World, so breakfast was at the room, then we ate lunch at Sea World. We found a decent barbecue place and I had some surprisingly good brisket. We then did a beer tasting at the Aneheuser Busch hospitality center. This involved tasting four different beers with various, cheeses, fruits and chocolates. It was rather interesting. For dinner, we went to the ever-elusive Sonic. Much like a friend of mine, I had seen several thousand commercials for Sonic, but never actually eaten there. Because of the high number of these commercials, I had visions that the menu would be 10 pages long with hundreds of options. Either they are like Taco Bell and just combine the same ingredients in different ways or have a rotating menu, because the menu wasn't that big. I suppose all of the build up left very little chance I'd be satisfied. The food was ok, but it surely wasn't worth all those times where I saw the commercials and would have liked to go try said item except there's no Sonic anywhere near where I live.

Food review, day 3

Breakfast at our room with some generic honey nut cheerios and lunch was also in the room, turkey sandwich, etc. After the game, I had a craving for a down home Easter Sunday dinner, so we went to Whistle Junction buffet, the highest rated buffet by the Lakeland Ledger. I had pulled pork, roast beef, baked chicken and ham as well as several sides and then several types of pudding. I was stuffed. Overall, it was just ok and probably not worth the increased price because it was Easter Sunday, but it filled the need.

Flea markets are awesome

Today was a rainy day in Florida and we decided to head out with my wife's parents to a flea market. This was an excellent choice. As someone who enjoys cheesy items, it was a day well spent.

The first flea market was a little trashier than the second. It was sparsely covered with vendors, some who appeared to literally have not sold an item in years. It was a good basis, as some items were ones that we'd see over and over all day.

The second was much bigger and a little more organized, but still full of a wealth of awesomely cheesy items. Full details of items are available in the above graph.

So I'm sure you are wondering about what we actually purchased. Here's a preview:

And here's a satisfied customer at the end of the day.

I now have two awesome gifts for friends.

Food review, day 2:

A rushed breakfast at McDonalds. An oldie, but goodie (tasting, not for you.) Sausage biscuit, hashbrown and milk. I ran about 2.5 miles later because I felt guilty about it.

The rest of the day was all about authentic Mexican food. I had two tacos (one chicken, one beef) made with just cilantro and onions. Then I had an ear of roasted corn smothered in butter, garlic salt and Parmesan cheese. Great for food out of trailer restaurants.

Dinner was also Mexican, at Tapatio's in Lakeland. We went based off a good review in the Lakeland Ledger and were not disappointed. It reminded us of one of our favorite restaurants back home, Little Mexico. My wife and I both had enchiladas and have some leftovers for the next couple of days. The service was good, we had some nice salsas and chips to munch on while we waited and the desserts looked awesome, though we were all too full to try.

Next up is trying some of the well-known barbecue places around Lakeland.

Also, tomorrow, we are going to Easter service at a church here that is apparently "dropping thousands of pieces of candy from a helicopter for all children." In all honesty, Easter is a special day to me because of its significance in my beliefs. But, the candy and helicopter was too ridiculous not to reference.

What constitutes a ceremonial first pitch thrower?

Our first day in Florida was a great one, although we're currently waiting to hear if my wife's parents were able to get out of Detroit because of the blizzard there. (Blizzard in late March, gotta love Michigan.)

We went to our first Tigers game, saw Gary Sheffield and Pudge Rodriguez hit home runs, but Dontrelle Willis got rocked and the Tigers lost. But the interesting thing about the game was one of the people to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. I didn't hear the name, but the description was "one of the original munchkins from the Wizard of Oz" and I also heard he was 89-years-old. After some of the other ceremonial first pitchers (there were like four, since when is that allowed?) were done and had bounced their throws, this gentleman and former munchkin star motioned to the catcher to come closer to the mound, which brought quite a laugh from the crowd. He then proceeded to throw the best strike of anyone.


It got me to thinking, if an 89-year-old who played a munchkin could throw out a first pitch, what would be a more random ceremonial first pitcher? Here's five of mine:
1. Air Bud's stunt double
2. The director of Snakes on a Train
3. The voice of Templeton from Charlotte's Web
4. Brad Anderson, creator and author of Marmaduke
5. A guy who beat Brandon Inge at pool




Food review, day one:

One of the great parts about vacation is all the different restaurants you get to try. I'll be writing short reviews of the days food for my own memory and for well, just me I guess. Today we went for mainly chain restaurants because we have a list of restaurants to try with my wife's parents once they get here.


Lunch - Steak and Shake
As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid greasy fast food. But once in awhile, it's just too hard to pass up. Steak and Shake was too hard to pass up today. I had a frisco melt, a chocolate mint shake and we shared some of the absolutely awesome fries. The burger was good, but the grease literally dripping from it was a bit disheartening. The fries were great as always. The shake was lacking in mint, but not bad overall. Once in a great while, it's good to have a little Steak and Shake.


Dinner - Panera Bread
After a great lunch, I figured a healthy dinner would be good, so I chose the orchard harvest salad. It contains field greens, crisp romaine, dried cherries, fresh pears, Gorgonzola, toasted pecans and a cherry balsamic vinaigrette. Normally I love Panera Bread, but today's choice was a bad one. I think it may have been the dressing, either I just didn't take to the taste or it was going bad. After a few bites, I couldn't eat anymore, an extreme rarity for me. Luckily, my wife had some soup and part of her sandwich I could eat. But I'll happily go back to Panera Bread in the future, I'll just remember to have things like the Chicken Pomodoro rather than the orchard harvest salad.

Stereotyping my life

It's Sunday night and it's normal in our house for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to be on. Now first, before I go on a rant making fun of the show, I have to say that I actually enjoy watching it. (Chalk up another loss in my manhood column.) I enjoy seeing the house transformation and the stories do tug at the heartstrings. So now that I've done my obligatory qualification to absolve myself, I will move on. I was just walking by and heard one of the designers tonight talking about how since one of the family members likes celtic stuff, they are going to do a celtic themed room. (Not the Boston basketball team, the dancing flute people...) Here's my problem, why do they always have to pigeon-hole these people into one theme? It's like they take one thing they hear about them and say, "that must be what they are all about!" and eliminate that the person might have more depth to them than their like for racecars. So they take the 8-year-old kid and make him a room all about racecars, with a race car bed, a dashboard style desk, a hans device to wear and some crazy pictures of fans among other things. Let's forget that in 2-3 years, he doesn't like racecars as much, his friends all make fun of his "little kid" bed and he can't get a girl to look at him. Meanwhile, Ty Pennington and the rest of the ABC crew have moved on to saving the next dolphin from a net and puppy from a burning house. But who thinks of little Johnny (please, call me John) and his racecar room. Then again, maybe this is all some 20/20 investigation 20 years in the making to see what happens to the little boys who had a racecar bed until they were 18 or the little girl who had to deal with the lifesize dollhouse in her room until she left for college.

But it got me to thinking of what it would have been if ABC had come to makeover my room at various points in my life. I also thought about what friends' rooms might look like. I'm sure my good friend would enjoy an entirely Spiderman theme room (except that sort of happened.) But anyways, here's a few I came up with for myself. Please add on comments or e-mail me more.

Now: A pudding cup for a dresser and a bed made to look like lasagna... mmm
College: Everything in my room would be deep-fried... everything
High school: An AOL instant messenger themed room encouraging me to only express my true feelings when I didn't have to say them and just type them (and then of course back off when asked about it in-person)
Middle school: I once went through a few month stretch where I listened to a Green Day tape all the time, I especially thought I was cool because of the wait... shhhh.... swear words... that were in the song... so rebellious. So they could make a Green Day room that would have lasted me about a half year before I moved on to a Boyz II Men stage. They might even be able to put a big quote on the wall from "I'll make love to you" that says "throw your clothes, on the floor!" where my laundry basket was because at that age, I sure didn't really think much more than throwing dirty clothes on the floor was going on in the lyrics.
Late elementary school: Sadly, the designers probably wouldn't have known how to make a Milt Cuyler-themed room.
Early elementary school: I could have cried myself to sleep every night if they put a scene from Pete's Dragon, because that is what happened when we watched that movie at school. (Too bad there isn't a link for "didn't grow up with a TV and couldn't handle the drama of movies for quite some time")
Early age: I probably would have gotten a Lego or Lincoln Log room because my brothers liked those things. And it wouldn't have hurt my case with being cool once I got older because a certain hobby went on way too long.

I could go on for awhile more stereotyping myself, it's quite fun. You should all try it.

Sorry for no posts all week, it was a busy one and I was sick with some illness that made it feel like someone had taken a rake to my throat. I'm pretty busy this week leading up to vacation, but hope to post a lot whilst we are down in Florida. (I don't know why I wrote this like anyone besides maybe Cory missed my blog posts... and I'm kidding myself to even think Cory missed it. And Cory, I partially wrote this just to make the Spiderman joke, so you're welcome.)

Create-a-player gone wild

Back when my friends and I used to play a lot of video games, we often utilized (or abused) the create-a-player function. We'd create 8-foot-tall players with all 100 ratings who could run faster and were stronger than anyone else. I remember a friend creating a team of all players like this on Madden and he would kickoff, then run with the kicker and hit the return man immediately after he caught the ball on the one yard line. In baseball, a friend and I created a team of all 8'8 players (the max height). We found there was the possibility to have a 150 mph knuckleball (no joke). You'd throw it twice, then throw the change-up and the batter would swing when the ball was halfway to the plate. It was comical to watch. We'd also take our 8'8 stars, load the bases and then do a suicide squeeze bunt. The runner from third would be touching home plate with his hand almost right after the ball came off the bat. We had great names for the players like Huge McLargeBig. We had way too much time on our hands.

The other day, I could swear I was dreaming when I was watching Sportscenter. Apparently Huge McLargeBig has a son. And his name is Kevin George. He's 7'7, has a wingspan of 8'5 and can dunk a basketball without leaving his feet!

Watching him actually reminded me of little kids playing basketball on one of those Little Tikes hoops.

Clip 1.

Clip 2.

Clip 3.

Somewhere, Huge McLargeBig has a huge mclargebig smile on his face. So does his friend Paul Bunyan.

I'm gonna fight Mother Nature

I want to punch Mother Nature, right in the face.

Ok, so maybe that's a little dramatic, but seriously, this weather is crazy. Sunday all the snow melted and I had fun chipping up all the ice at the end of the driveway. Brought to you by my friend Garrett side note: It's always one of my favorite times when all the ice built up at the end of the driveway just pops up after water starts to run underneath it. It's a signal to the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Then Monday, it was in the 50's, I wore a short sleeved shirt to work and life was good. When I woke up yesterday to find snow up to the back door when I let the dog outside. It took me an hour and half to drive to work and I figured that was stupid but it will all be melted soon. Then I hear we're supposed to get another big batch of snow this weekend. It's MARCH! We've had enough, we surrender. In two weeks, I'll be headed to Florida for a week, that's my only bright spot.

Lost was awesome last week and it's about to start, so that's all for now. Hopefully more updates this weekend.

Get over it

I'll start this post with a caveat. I've been a big fan of Brandon Inge for a few years now. Beyond enjoying him as a baseball player (well, maybe except the hitting last year), I also had the chance on several occasions to meet him and he's a real nice guy. Through a family connection, I got to meet him after a game early in his major league career (if you've ever talked to me in-person, you've probably heard the story 37 times.) A few times after that in spring training, that same connection brought additional encounters and every time I was impressed with how down to earth he was.

That impression is why I'm completely baffled by the recent events. Inge threw a borderline temper-tantrum yesterday about having to catch again, claiming his hitting will suffer. Besides the fact that his hitting did suffer last year while he was playing the position he loves, third base, the Tigers replaced him with one of the best young third basemen in baseball, Miguel Cabrera.

In honor of the Inge "I can't hit if I catch statement," a friend suggested he was going to tell his bosses he would work better if he could wear pajamas every day. That's about how ridiculous Inge is acting. He has six million reasons in the 2008 to keep his thoughts to himself. Not to say he can't be upset about what happened, he's spoke his mind now and needs to stop. I can't tell if he keeps being open with his feelings because he's a nice guy or if he's trying to be difficult. Jim Leyland got the message and it's pretty obvious he's not too pleased with it. Leyland kept it nice since the Tigers are trying to trade Inge, but this statement shows doesn't agree with how Inge can't seem to keep his feelings to himself. "Read the paper this morning. It’s obvious. He does not want to catch."

In a region (and country) where everyone is having to make sacrifices because of the economy, it gets a little tiring to hear about a guy making that much money complain about his place in life. It appears the scene on the way down to spring training that put things in perspective is now forgotten. So here's my advice, just keep the thoughts to yourself. Stop talking to the media. Normally that's a bad strategy, but here, it's fine. After all, this story started because a few writers, mainly Lynn Henning, made the story personal and were hurt when Inge didn't give them a story during an autograph session over the offseason. But ever since Inge finally opened his mouth, the story won't go away. So hard to blame him for the initial strategy of being quiet. Henning tried to play it off as him owing an explanation to the Tiger fans, when it's obvious he wanted an explanation because he thought it was a story. Apparently, Henning even took it to the stalker level. Now, as if on a personal mission, Henning won't stop writing about it. And sadly, Inge won't stop talking about it. And I wish they'd all be quiet.

Trade deadline

Wednesday was trade deadline day in the National Hockey League. While hockey isn't the biggest sport anymore, trade deadline day in Detroit is pretty funny because fans have become accustomed to a big move. Especially pre-lockout and salary cap, the Red Wings would poach top players other teams couldn't afford. While at first I loved it, I soon realized the Wings had basically become the Yankees of hockey and I understood why fans of other teams hated them. Last year, the Wings tried to prepare fans that they wouldn't be able to make deadline moves under the new cap, then went out and ruined it by trading for Todd Bertuzzi, a move that didn't work out very well. Thankfully, the Predators' trade for Peter Forsberg and the Thrashers' trade for Keith Tkachuk were about 100 times as stupid. This year, many teams who saw how detrimental the Forsberg trade was to the Predators (and how beneficial it was to the Flyers) and were more careful. The Red Wings were among these. Big names like Marian Hossa were thrown around, but the Wings never realistically had the pieces to go after Hossa without breaking up the team that had the best record in the NHL. After having 37 defensemen befallen to injury, the Wings went out and got a very reputable defenseman for not a lot, a move applauded by hockey experts. Inevitably, local sports columnist writes column immediately questioning why the Wings didn't do more. Funny thing is, this columnist did the same thing at the baseball trading deadline last year. (And for the record, the Red Sox won the World Series despite Eric Gagne, not because of him.) It's as if there's a canned column waiting on trade deadline day saying "Home team obviously doesn't do enough." The fan reaction on the radio is even funnier. Somehow, tons of fans have inside access that lead them to know about possible trades that the GM either doesn't know about, or apparently isn't smart enough to take. Then the annual hating on the GM starts. And the panic as they analyze the moves made by other contenders. It all makes for quite good theater. Unfortunately, trade deadline moves haven't proven to be all that successful. In an article last year, a Baseball America writer ranked some of the most notable moves, most turning out to be horrible moves. Jeff Bagwell and John Smoltz, both part of trades late in the season before they became stars. Imagine what Bagwell would have done for the Red Sox or Smoltz for the Tigers (I cry about this one late at night, luckily Doyle Alexander basically was the whole reason the Tigers won the AL East in 1987.) In Detroit, we were on the end of one of the most successful deadline deals, as Rasheed Wallace put the Pistons over the hump on their way to an NBA championship. And the 1994 Rangers were in a similar position as the Wings when they shook up their roster, adding Stephane Matteau among others. But for the most part, trades made at the deadline haven't made that big of a difference. More often, it's been the small move that addressed a weakness without breaking up what was working well to put a team in contention in the first place.

But inevitably, the proliferation of moves at the deadline has created millions of would-be GMs who just can't figure out why their favorite team won't make that obvious move to trade Uwe Blab, Tom Beer, Curtis Pride and three second round picks for Michael Jordan, Alex Rodriguez and Mother Teresa. So for all you GMs out there, here's a simple diagram you can put up in your office to remind you what to do on trade deadline day. Do it for the sake of humankind.

Note: I only talk that much about hockey because it is the most recent example. Sadly, hockey has become fairly irrelevant for me.

Manhood falling

In a few weeks, my wife is hosting a Tastefully Simple party. From what I understand, this consists of her friends coming over and sampling a bunch of food, then deciding which to buy. Since I love sampling food, I'm excited about this party. Today, my wife showed me the menu, which included tempting taco cheese balls, absolutely chocolate pound cake and bountiful beer bread. (I'd link to their other products if they actually had them on their site.) When writing her an e-mail back to say which foods excited me the most, I almost mistakenly wrote bountiful beef bread, which I admitted to her I would also have been excited about. So if you're reading Tastefully Simple, I'm giving you that one for free. Go forth and create beef bread. In the meantime, I'm going to be way too excited about this party than any man should be.

After a few days off from posting because a crazy week, I'm looking forward to posting this weekend about sports trading deadlines. I need access to my work computer (not during the work day) so I can make some great supporting charts and graphs. (Thank God for Office2007 and SmartArt.) It's going to be great fun for all. Well, maybe just me.

On a lighter note...

After the below post, I figured I'd add something a little lighter for the day as well. First is a story from the UK, where apparently a man died after eating too much cake. The story was intriguing for several reasons. First, I'll admit I'd never heard of fairy cakes, and I ran a search wondering what amazing concoction they might be. Apparently, it's what they call cupcakes in Europe. So basically, this man died eating cupcakes. That's one way to go. Fiery chariot is still the best one I've heard of though.

I will always make a spot for the discovery of old athletes. Today's entry was sent by a co-worker and finds Cedric Ceballos as a DJ in Arizona. This brought on inevitable jokes about him doing the show with a blindfold on. "It's blindfold Tuesday on your old school station, Mega 104.3!" I also found on Cedric's personal site that his "journal" is rather interesting. He types in all caps and usually begins with "HEY WORLD!" and ends with some crazy long acronym, "HYBDLYBHY." (i sincerely hope this isn't something obvious, I googled it and there were two pages, both with references to Ceballos.) I was reading them all imaging Cedric Ceballos yelling at me and it was quite fun. My favorite entry had to be this one though, "HEY WORLD, WOULD YOU LIKE THE CHANCE TO WIN A DODGE SRT-10 TRUCK? WELL KEEP CHECKING BACK BECAUSE I WILL BE GIVING ONE AWAY THIS YEAR.... HYBDLYBHY." This year, that's pretty definitive there, Ced. And why a retired NBA player would be giving away a truck randomly on his Web site confuses me. But Cedric Ceballos yelling at me about a free truck while wearing a blindfold does not confuse me at all. In fact, nothing is confusing about that. In the meantime, let's all keep checking in so we can win the truck!

Shame on who?

So judging by my last post, you know who I support for President. So I'll admit this post is not going to be the most objective one. There have been a few times in this race where I've been extremely disappointed. Today it reached a new level. After a photo of Senator Obama in a tunic and turban during a trip to Kenya was released, the Clinton campaign denied it had distributed the photo, but instead of condemning the tactic and whoever did release it, one staffer decided this would be the opportune time to pontificate about how the press is too easy on Obama. Furthermore, spokeswoman Maggie Williams stooped to a new level, trying to blame the Obama campaign for calling it a divisive photo. Senator Clinton then took the chance in a Texas interview to say it was an attempt to change the subject from health care. Rather than denounce it, Senator Clinton would rather use it for her own agenda. Yet, just a few days earlier she was on national TV declaring, "Shame on you, Barack Obama." She called his positioning of her stance on NAFTA, "tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook, this is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged." Yet when it comes to this issue, Senator Clinton seems to think its more about diverting the attention from health care. She seems to think that a tactic like talking about issue differences is worse than someone trying to use fear to bring down Obama. The same fear-tactics used by the current administration and condemned in every speech from a Democrat. Yet, her campaign's hands aren't clean. I don't know for sure if they did this or not. But their reaction enough is despicable. So who should be shaming who? The answer is pretty clear.

A day with Tony and Barack

Normally Sunday afternoons are spent lounging on the couch and preparing for another week of work. Today was different, we decided to go see Barack Obama speak in Toledo. We were so determined to get in that we arrived 3.5 hours early, still worrying we might not. We sat for quite some time, played games on our phones, talked and listened to some absolutely awesome gospel music performed by local groups. The anticipation grew as the moment grew closer and when Barack arrived, I thought the roof was going to blow off the place. A few things I noticed today. The crowd was incredibly diverse, old and young, all different races. You could tell that everyone there was genuinely excited to be there. I remember attending a Bob Dole rally in high school because our school band was invited to play. There was certainly energy (as there are with most rallies at a presidential candidate level), but nowhere near like it was for Obama today. He's a great speaker and it's a moment I don't know if I'll ever forget. We got a stump speech with a lot of content familiar from other speeches he's given, but even then, it was a memorable event. Hopefully there will be many more campaign stops in the future and perhaps the chance to see him speak again.

After the event, we tried to go to Uncle John's Pancake House, an interesting joint we saw on the way to the Obama event. A friend looked up information on his Blackberry while we waited and we found out that the place has a 60 foot boat hanging from the ceiling. They also have an all-you-can-eat pancake Wednesday. Sadly, they randomly decided to close at 6 p.m. today. So we decided to head to a Toledo tradition, Tony Packo's (the original one.) Although the fact that we skipped lunch to make it to the rally as quickly as possible after church and were very hungry, Tony did not disappoint. Some chicken chili nachos as an appetizer followed by two Tony dogs and a side of mac and cheese later, I was stuffed. The hot dogs were very unique, more like polish or smoked sausage cut in half. A friend had a more traditional Hungarian meal with stuffed cabbage, hamburg (yes, hamburg, not hamburger, a Hungarian meatloaf type dish) and paprikas dumplings. The samples I had of his food were very good as well. Since it was getting late and our poor dog needed to be let out, we didn't stay to check out the many signed buns (yes, celebrities sign hot dog buns, which are then air sealed and displayed.) In the brief time we spent looking at them, I saw names like Geraldine Ferraro, Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu (assuming it's the elder), Walter Mondale and many other names political geeks like me find interesting. For a minute I wondered how so many politicians had come through Tony Packo's. Then I remembered where I had just come from, a political rally and realized that Ohio and it's blue collar workers have been long coveted by politicians. It makes sense that while stopping through Toledo, they would hit up this landmark. I'm glad we decided to do the same while we were there. Too bad they didn't ask us to sign any buns.

A looking forward Saturday

It was one of those weeks. I didn't make it home before 7 p.m. one night out of the week and that night, we immediately left for a dinner with friends (at this great little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place ironically called Little Mexico.) Today feels like the first time I have actually been able to contemplate anything more than work and the Tigers. That easily brings me to the first thing I'm looking forward to on this Saturday, spring training.

In 27 days, we take our annual trip to spring training. This is the 4th year we've made the trip down to Lakeland. Even before the Tigers were good, it was an absolutely great trip. Watching spring training baseball is so relaxing and the low-key nature of our trips is perfect to get away from the busy lives back in Michigan. I'm spending more time than ever looking into restaurants we can eat at while down there. I continue to be inspired by one of my favorite shows Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, to find the best local restaurants. One of the great ones we found last year was Mario's. We had read stories how former Tigers General Manager Jim Campbell would dine there nightly during spring training with other members of the Tigers. Last year, when we went, we sat near Tigers backup catcher Vance Wilson and some members of the training staff. This year, I'm hoping we find even more. In the meantime, I daily check out photos from the spring training complex, HueyTaxi has my favorites. Our grandparents head down there in time for the first game next week. We'll be joining them along with my wife's parents for the final week of spring training. I'm counting down the days.

The second thing I look forward to is the NFL Draft. This weekend is the NFL combine and my wife is grateful we no longer get the NFL Network. Two years ago, I literally sat around watching intently as offensive lineman ran the 40-yard dash. My grandpa always has an NFL draft party with detailed information about each player. Since the Lions are horrible and will inevitably mess up their pick, I've taken a bigger picture view the past few years to watch players from the state of Michigan and intriguing stories from other players. I was particularly interested in the story of Michael Oher, the subject of Michael Lewis' The Blind Side: The Evolution of a Game. In a smart move, Oher decided to go back to Ole Miss for another season. So I'm on the lookout for other interesting stories from players seeking to get into the NFL. And inevitably, they can be found.

Lastly, I look forward to seeing the sun during the day and being able to run outside again. The recumbent bike in the basement and treadmill at the gym are no match for a run outside. Saturdays are a nice preview since I actually get to see the sun and a decently warm day like today provides hope for spring. When I start focusing in on Spring Training and the NFL draft, I know it's the home stretch for the bitterly cold days of February.

Welcome and background

Oh blogging. Seems these days everyone is blogging and after several failed attempts to commit myself to the blogosphere, I'm giving it a go again. I've been inspired by my good friend and college roomate, who has a hilarious blog here. If I can come up with content 1/10th as entertaining as his blog, I'll be very happy. There's no real concrete objective of this blog, it will be a view into my weird take on life and cover a range of topics including food, sports, politics, pop culture, religion, exercise and who knows what else.

So why call it addicted to pudding? Well, I am addicted to pudding. I fault it on my recent wisdom teeth removal. I had been enjoying the occasional cup of pudding from the restaurant in the building I work in, but when I was forced into eating only soft foods, pudding became the thing I looked most forward to every day. Now, even when I can eat solid foods just fine, I still look forward to that little cup of Jello pudding every day. Up until 2007, I used to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. After realizing that wasn't a very productive lifestyle and continually being appalled at how fat I was getting (this time in my life is commonly referred to as "when I liked cake too much,") I recommitted myself to fitness and healthier eating. I dropped around 55 pounds that year and have kept it off. So now that little cup of pudding takes care of the sweet tooth I once fed whenever possible. It should be noted that I am also addicted to pancakes. Before you say I must be addicted to foods beginning with P, I must note I do not care for prunes, peaches or prawns. I do, however, enjoy pork chops, pasta, potatos and pizza. (in moderation of course.) I was once addicted to "pop" or soda as it seems anyone outside of Michigan calls it. I've been pop-free for around a year now and it's been a great decision.

For my friends I don't get to see all that often, I hope this will serve as some type of regular update on what's been happening in my life. For those who don't know me and happen upon this blog, it's ok that you are scared. I'm a bit different than the other kids and I'm totally fine with that. Enjoy!