Meet my new roommate, Chloe

Meet Chloe.



Chloe was lost and followed my friend's wife and their dog, Sneaker home one day. After trying to find an owner and not having any luck, I decided to take her in. Her first visit to the vet determined that she was somewhere around 6 - 9 months old and most likely a Pure White Husky (even though her eyes look blue-ish, they are really a milky white). She is right around her full size and will probably just add some weight to her frame (ending around 45-50 lbs). She's a fairly independent breed and very intelligent. Another thing I found out, she doesn't do floating stairs (the kind without risers) and had to take the elevator up to the check-out room.

She got the full work-up of shots and tests and needed to be spayed so she stayed there overnight. When I went to pick her up the doctor said she did great and was a really well behaved dog. I took her home, gave her the pain meds and let her sleep (she wanted nothing to do with her food that night).

I guess my next move is going to be getting a hamster and black tuxedo cat to round out the pack.



She loves sticking her head out the window, but isn't so much a fan of car rides in general.



I've taken her around Patterson Park once so far and we saw 4 other huskies on our walk but they all had normal coloring and were a lot fluffier than Chloe. We've also gone to the dog park in Canton a couple times and she's very reserved with the other dogs and just seems to go with the flow. Her favorite walks seem to be down along the water between the 1st Mariner Bank building and Fells Point.



I know I haven't been posting much lately, but hopefully I'll get back into a more regular schedule. My internet has been out at home for a while and I'm really not in any rush to fix it.

Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun

OK, so a couple reviews today, first the new Bond movie (no spoilers), Quantum of Solace and then onto sangria night at Gecko's, with a little Rock Band thrown in for good measure.

Newman and I went to the theater in Harbor East to see Bond and naturally when there is beer available, I got some. I like that theater because the seat are more comfortable than any other theater I have been in and there usually aren't a lot of people there. I really only have a general review as I don't want to write about the story or anything specific for people that haven't seen it. Several of my friends have said they don't like the lack of gadgets in the new movies (this and Casino Royale); I actually like that better. I like that it is a little more grounded and could potentially happen, unlike the invisible car from the one with Halle Berry. The opening was great and I really like the song, "Another Way to Die" by Jack White and Alicia Keys. [Side Note: I really liked her first CD, "Songs in A Minor" because nothing sounds sexier than a soulful woman singing over a piano] Their voices sound really good together and the visuals of the opening were pretty sweet. I thought the movie was very bi-polar. There were several scenes of intense action followed be long, slow, dramatic build-ups. While I liked the action, I thought the scenes were too jumpy ... couldn't really focus and who was doing what, just that there was action. I liked the ending too, I feel like it opens it up to a lot of options for the future. That's really all I got. Oh, and as we were leaving the halls were filled with girls and women of all ages ... apparently there was a Twilight pre-screening. They seemed pretty excited.

On my way home from dropping Newman off I got a text from Boozer and Strike Out (names given from my volleyball team, not me) about going out for drinks. Boozer had a bad day at work and she wanted to get out. I met up with them at Looney's and we decided to go to Gecko's on Fleet Street for sangria night. I had never been there before but heard about it and was looking forward to going. The sangria was really good and the price was low for how much you got. $10 a pitcher and you could get 4.5 or 5 glasses out of each. We started playing pool and ordered some guacamole. The guac wasn't anything special, but it was fresh and tasted good. After several hours, lots of pool, and maybe 5 pitchers of sangria, we headed back to my place to play some (semi) drunk Rock Band. An hour of that (our band is up to 90,000 fans) and we called it a night ... at around 12:30 I think.

Overall it was a good night but I still haven't installed my thermostat and will try not to get too distracted with Mahaffey's wing night and 3 for $4 happy hour tonight. It's really starting to get cold out and I need to get some heat in my house so the pipes don't freeze.

Oh, and if this post seems like I ran out of ADD meds and someone was waving shiny things in front of me while I was typing may be because I wrote it 5 words at a time over the course of 6 hours.

My encounter with George Lucas (kinda)

After the Terps game on Saturday night I met up with my friend Amy and headed over to Mahaffey's for a couple beers. She had her Praxis II earlier and wanted to hang out and relax and Mahaffey's is really one of the best places around me to go out on a Saturday night and not have to fight through a crowd (even more so now that it appears Tiburzi's has closed down again).

When we got there we immediately went upstairs, it's smaller but has a more relaxed atmosphere and I like the bartender up there. There was a small group, maybe a dozen people including Amy and I and many of them were bowling on the bartender's Wii. Amy and I were content sitting at the bar catching up (I haven't seen her in over a month) when this guy I have to assume was George Lucas' clone started whistling ... and not the normal whistle, he was doing the two fingers in the sides of your mouth, ear piercing, siren whistle. Now GL was literally sitting less than a yard from Amy and every time he whistled she would do a flinching cringe that made it apparent the whistles were not pleasant. Just to note, he was whistling at his wife/gf when it was her turn to bowl on the Wii. Here is the following exchange:

Me - "Excuse me, would you mind not whistling as loud, thanks?"

GL - "Sure, no problem" (GL turns away and pauses for a second and turns back)

GL (perplexed) - "Wait, you're serious, aren't you?"

Me - "Yes, I would appreciate it ... thanks"

(GL turns back, a few minutes go by without a whistle, GL turns to me and puts out his hand)

GL - (shaking hands) "Hi, I'm Jim, I come here a lot"

Me - "Good to meet you Jim. I come here often too, I've seen you around"

Jim (formally GL) - "Yeah, I was the first person to get in the 100 beer club here"

Me - "Congratulations"

(Jim turns back away, several minutes later Amy and I hear him telling his wife/gf about our exchange and how he wasn't allowed [yes, allowed] to whistle anymore)

(more time passes, Jim is packing up to go home and pays tab ... bartender comes over and tells me Jim picked up my tab)

Me - "Thanks Jim, that wasn't necessary ... you really didn't need to do that"

Jim - "It was nothing ... and next time you don't want someone whistling, go to a different bar"

Me - "I'll make a note of that, thanks again for the drinks"

(Jim leaves)

Now, I was pretty impressed with myself throughout this entire time ... first, if anyone knows me and I have a problem with someone, I am typically not the most polite person. Since I had seen Jim around Mahaffey's a lot, I thought it would be appropriate to be nice, plus I didn't think my request was unreasonable. The area upstairs was something like 15' x 30' with the bar and sofas and tables taking up a lot of it. His whistles were pretty damn loud and while I didn't care, Amy did and she wouldn't have said anything. I also didn't ask him to stop, just to lower the volume a little. For someone obviously at least in their 50's and seemingly well into their 60's, I think this guy acted like a child. I just wish I had more than 3 drinks on my tab at the time. Anyways, I like Mahaffey's and there aren't many places with the beer selection they have so I will continue to go there and maybe I'll find a reason to whistle.

Is Red House Tavern in Canton Any Good?

Going there tonight for some trivia ... will try some food and see how everything is. I went the once before, but was not in the capacity to remember much about the experience. It was the night of the Irish festival and the night before my dragonboat race, there was a band playing and it seemed nice, but I couldn't stay long and didn't form much of an opinion.

Weekend Review

I accomplished my goal this weekend and did not spend any money and still had a great time.

After working on my house Saturday and watching a movie in the morning I went for a walk around Canton. Stopped by Blockbuster to return the movie and pick up some new movies (I subscribe to the BB Total Access and believe it is better than Netflix since I can walk to the store and get a new movie immediately for free and still have the next one in my queue arrive in a couple days) then continued down toward the 1st Mariner building and looped around till I got back home. Cooked some lunch and wasted an hour and a half of my life on the worst (maybe not the worst but definately up there) movie ever; The Happening. Walked up to Patterson Park and watched my sister's BSSC football team shutout some horrible team 50-something to 0.

After the game, we (me, my sis and her bf) headed to Dockside and had dinner (they paid, thanks!) before heading out to Mahaffey's to meet up with some people from their football team. I stopped by my neighbors' for a minute and a couple beers before going to Mahaffey's since a couple of them ran in the B'more marathon and were having a party later. Back out at Mahafee's I had a couple beers that I think people only bought to increase their level in the 100 Beer Club but didn't want to drink. Gotta love the 9% beers. I stayed there for a while until my sister's choice of music on the jukebox started getting to me and I had to leave.

I went back to my neighbors' house and by this time the party had started and there were a bunch of people there. I started playing the drinking game "baseball" (which I had never played before) and ended up drinking more than I had planned. After a while everyone wanted to head out so about 10 of us made a quick pit stop at my house and finished off one of the bottles (yes I keep multiple on hand) of Jager before heading to Looney's. Thinking back on it I find it funny that there were that many people crowding around my kitchen with a drop cloth hanging between the living room and the kitchen and my couch and bike also in the kitchen with my ceiling half missing (run-on sentence?). We got to Looney's and went upstairs to go dancing (I haven't danced since college but since my friend couldn't find her husband she used me instead). A couple of the people that had the Jager shots with me bought me shots at the bar so it all worked out in terms of not needing to buy anything. We closed out the bar (I think) and I went home and passed out.

I woke up feeling great at 12:45 Sunday and immediately updated my fantasy football team (good thing too cause I didn't have a full line-up ~ ended up winning). I packed some beers and rode my bike over to my sister's bf's house to watch the Ravens game. After getting there I think the realization that I had entirely too much to drink the night before hit me like a ton of bricks. I went to the basement and passed out until the 3rd quarter. When I came back upstairs and saw the score I really felt like going back down to pass out again. Instead we waited until the end of the game (and the Redskins final and the Dallas ending) then went outside to play football in the street. A couple collisions with cars and some scraped knees later, my team won. I got a ride home since it was dark and I didn't feeling like getting hit by a car on my way home. That pretty much ended my weekend since I wasn't able to get to my volleyball game after getting home (stupid car).

Osborne Cox?

After my football game (BSSC, we lost) on Saturday I went out to Mustang Alley's bowling bar thing near Little Italy with a friend from college. This was the first time I had been there and I was impressed. The music was great (a good mix of contemporary and classic rock and hip-hop/r&b and everything else but country), the atmosphere was relaxing and the bar seemed to be full service with every alcohol and real food (not the normal pizza/hot dogs and bud products you find at most bowling alleys). They charge by the hour per lane, $35 (during the time we were there, it's more expensive later at night) which wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't just me and my friend. The benefit though is that we got 4 games in. I won the first two pretty easily, i think it was something like 155-80 and 140-70something. I wouldn't say I felt bad for her but the scores of the last two games were significantly closer and I lost both times. We left there and headed over to Landmark Theaters to see Burn After Reading.

This movie marks the first time I got theater popcorn in over 2 years. I usually pass on it since I can have popcorn at home (homestyle is the best) but since my f'ing microwave decides to burn every bag I have attempted to pop ... I haven't had any in a long time and was going through withdrawal. The movie was great, everyone in it was great, the crowd in the theater was great. Just a really good theater experience. One of the great quotes, "Chad Feldheimer: [on the phone] Osbourne Cox? I thought you might be worried...about the security...of your shit." I love the Coen brothers when they do dark comedy.

After the movie we went back to Canton to get some food at Tiburzi's. They got a new pool table upstairs and we played a few games. I am terrible at pool, absolutely terrible. I won once ... by default ... because she hit the 8-ball in on her third shot. I am really starting to feel at home at Tiburzi's, I know everyone's name, I don't need to worry about wanting to punch someone in the face as I usually feel every time I go out in the square, the beer's cheap, the crowd is relaxed. After Tiburzi's we went and played some darts at my house (I won) then played a couple songs on Rock Band. The whole day was fun and made up for the completely shitty workweek.

Irish Festival, Friday Night

I went to the Irish festival in Canton on Friday around 6:00 PM, just after it opened. There was constant but light rain when I got there and I didn't mind so much. The music was really good, a band called Donegal Xpress was playing and had a violinist the looked pretty hot (who was definitely hotter because she was playing the violin). Tir Na Nog was one of the vendors there offering Shepard's Pie and Irish Stew ... aside from the ridiculously small portion for the price, the Irish Stew was amazing. Unfortunately, the festival didn't have any good drink specials ... I thought the point of these were to get a mass of people to come there instead of go to the bars, the Guinness was $6 for a pint ... I can get it equal or cheaper at most of the bars on the square without having to deal with the rain. One of the stands (it was more of a table off to the side) was Baltimore GAA, the Gaelic Athletic Association. I talked to the girl there for a while and think I would like to try out some of their stuff, except practice/try-outs are Sunday when I will be getting ready (drinking) for the Ravens-Browns game. Maybe I can drop-in later in the season?

Anyways, the light rain turned into a heavy downpour and after the band played a cover of Dropkick Murphys "Shipping up to Boston" I was happy enough to leave and head to Looney's for some shelter and less expensive beer (now I need to go home and watch the Departed). Ran into some friends and went to another place where some band was playing then went home to crash for my 4:30 AM wake-up call for the Dragonboat Races (more on that later).