Kind Of Felt Like Typing (03/30/13)

Okay it's 9:10pm and I still haven't had supper. Just finished watching a great RockDoc on the Foo Fighters on VH1 Classic. When Dave Grohl started the band way back when I was hesitant to embrace the West Coast hard rock n grunge sound made popular by the Foos, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. Over the last ten years or so I have jumped on the bandwagon and actually like going back and listening to the earlier material. One thing I have noticed is that these bands and their sound remains true and not formulaic at all.

A couple weeks ago the Drive out of Chicago was playing classic album sides and a couple of the sides they played sounded so boring, trite and passe. Back in the 80s I liked Van Halen amd Bon Jovi. Listening to 1984 or Slippery When Wet in the 2010s was way boring. Frankie and Gina can go jump in a lake for all I care to paraphrase a song or two from those albums.

Okay I'll stop slagging the hair bands now. LOL. I used to love the hair bands. Perhaps my baldness has created a hair band aversion of sorts. Who knows? LOL.

Anyways while watching this RockDoc, I did my usual channel surfing during commercials and happened upon an episode of Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" where Guy was in Rhode Island watching the chef prepare "Littlenecks, Roasted Corn, Chorizo and Tomatoes over Spaghetti" and it looked absolutely delicious. I have never made clams at home. In fact I never have ordered clams in a restaurant. I have had some but not often. They were of the fried variety which is probably blasphemous to many. I looked up the recipe and have it saved and I may try it out next weekend. It looks really tasty and not too complicated.

It was a beautiful day here. I was pretty productive. Well I was for me on a weekend. Funny how my monthly massage does wonders for my "esprit de corps".

I went to another funeral or graveside ceremony today. It absolutely sucks that as I get older more and more people I know or know of are passing away. The count over the last year or so is reaching double digits and that truly saddens me. I get all pensive at these things and it brings me back to my immediate family losses like my Mom and Dad.

Hmmmm. All of a sudden I don't know what to type. I think I need to head to the kitchen and dazzle. Ha. It's too darn clean there anyways as I cleaned up last night. I have some medium size shrimp thawed that will go well with something. It can't be bad to eat shrimp at 10 pm can it? Hmmm. I think not! Besides I did say and write to someone today that starting Monday I will be a little more normal in my eating habits. As it is still my birthday month it is therefore my prerogative to do as I want. Anybody knowing me well would say that I must have a birthday every month as I pretty much do what I want when I want. It's the Canadian in me!

Peace out!

Ramble On I Say, Ramble On (03/28/13)

So we are getting real close to starting the 2nd quarter of the year and looking back it seems that I haven't done much so far besides perhaps cleaning up my backyard pretty nice though I still have some to do. I will likely finish that up this Saturday and Sunday if the weather holds out. It will at least be milder.

I was re-reading this blog for typos and I realized that I am so accountant-like. Rapidly approaching the end of the 1st quarter. LOL. Normal peeps would say something about spring being sprung and here I am dropping fractions at the drop of a hat.

I did start planning a nice week off at Sanibel Island at the end of June. I have the condo reserved, a deposit down and beach chair at the ready. Between now and then I need to get a beer cooler. Well a larger one at least!

It might be a good idea to lose some weight between now and then because NASA may be reporting white whale sightings off Sanibel and Captiva in late June. NASA would have had they still a budget! So I guess I am safe! LOL. Seriously though I made the great choice to quit smoking 3 years ago but since then my metabolism has slowed down to the same rate as the average rate of brain activity in a typical Republican in the year 2013. Yes pretty much non-existent.

I was thinking about it this morning as I got dressed for the office that my wardrobe is really lacking in clothes that still fit me somewhat. One of my co-workers actually said that I looked dressed up today and looked sharp. Truth in fact I had just come back from getting my head shaved and was wearing decent fitting clothes that was a step above my usual shorts and T attire or short sleeves and khaki attire.

I picked up H at school at 5 and forewarned him that we were going to stop for some cold beers and nachos at Bailey's. It was sort of a reward for almost getting to the almost end of the work week as well as it being sunny and in the 60s which hasn't been seen here in the last couple of weeks.

As I had Led Zep's Celebration Day blasting on the car stereo with the windows down; the usual drive home conversation would have to wait until we reached Bailey's as Zep's Kashmir was on the player.

Once we got our large ice cold Yuengling drafts with nachos on the way our conversations took off. Either we have the attention spans of amoeba or we just like to wander when we converse which explains the way I write these blogs and the meandering that I do.

Inside of an hour we had talked about the Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and the Montreal Canadiens. We touched upon his paternal grandmother and his maternal grandmother. We hit upon his long distance charges on my cell phone bill as well as how many gigs his Pandora usage is on our shared date usage plan with Verizon. Shared? Ha kind of like Romney/Ryan's economic plan. Sharing my effing derriere. We then segued into bad draft beer tap choices at Bailey's which led into conversation riffs on the drum skills of Jason Bonham, Keith Moon and the Mike dude from Dream Theater. That led us into a conversation about John Entwhistle's bass playing as well as the bass players from Muse and Kasabian. Then we went into a conversation about Chia Pets that would grow into "Jesus" look-alikes and how that would be a big seller in SC. Then the conversation turned to how I can never keep track of his friends besides Eean, Matt, Sam and Aaron I guess. Turns out that he has four friends name Nick. It's like what the eff! Is there that many people that name their sons after a gambler or a Russian czar. We then talked about the cons of jalapenos being drowned in some vinegary solution pretty much guaranteeing that they lose all their sizzle. We also of course had the obligatory "Dad you are such a doofus" moment when I asked him about the bass and keyboard player that are quite invisible in Black Keys videos. Turns out the the guitarist plays those instruments as well so they only have touring keyboard and bass players so the group could be called Two Black Keys and that would be apropos.

Hmmm. Well I went off on another tangent here as I am wont to do at times. I have also lost my train of thought as I have the last ten minutes scratching Jinx Jynx's tummy so I am going to sign off for now and try to be a little less scattered the next time. Ha!

Peace out!

This And That And The Other Thing (03/17/13)

Well Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! This day is also known worldwide as Marc's Birthday Eve. Ha! Yes I am celebrating another birthday tomorrow. All I can say about that is man oh man the years go by fast after you hit forty. I am flipping over to 2nd half of my life officially tomorrow.

After spending a quiet Friday night at home making chicken curry (thumbs up from the younger Schlewing) for the first time on my own and getting semi-sloshed on a bottle of Italian red; I was quite busy yesterday. The morning absolutely sucked and I don't think I can make it any prettier than that.

I got super busy in the afternoon in my backyard cleaning up as much of remaining leaves and sweet effing gumballs that have accumulated in my yard for the last couple of years. Literally hundreds and hundreds. I filled up at least 12 to 15 wheelbarrow loads of stuff that has fallen off the trees in my yard or are leftover grass clippings from last year I guess. Surprisingly my back is okay today. I have a sore spot on my right hand caused by the manner that I rake which will probably get worse in a little bit when I head back out to finish what I started yesterday and on several other weekend days. It's great having a large and tree filled backyard but it is work keeping it well maintained.

After doing this work I felt I should reward myself with a trip downtown to the West End and have myself some great chicken wings and craft beers on tap at Mac's Speed Shop. A bonus was that a great traditional Irish band named Kellee (www.kelleemusic.com/#1) was playing there at 8pm. I have seen Kellee play at Fitzpatrick's at least 5-6 times over the last couple of years and have always enjoyed their versions of traditional Irish songs from yesteryear. I stayed for the first set and as usual loved their music. Unfortunately Mac's crowd was not very appreciative of the efforts made by the band. Most weren't listening and hardly participating. Kellee's music is truly an interactive affair to really enjoy.

There were tons of people wearing green yesterday night but they were less Irish than people from Sri Lanka or the Solomon Islands. A bunch of posers drinking Bud Light in green bottles and having shots called Irish Car Bombs. Just the name of that shot revolts me. I can't be the only person that thinks that naming a drink after symbols of violence is just effing wrong. What's next? A shot named after 911 or Newtown. Think of it. Isn't that exactly the same as the name of that shot? Disheartening I think.

Okay enough of that vent. It just peeved me off.

I will say that the chicken wings were phenomenal. I always take the Red BBQ flavor. Delicious! I had a few pints of Redhook Long Hammer IPA and truly enjoyed that beer as well. First time having this beer that is brewed in Washington state. Definitely a keeper.

Well as I wrote earlier, time to get busy outside!

Peace out!

Okay I Felt Like Typing (03/02/2013)

Well I have not been exactly prolific in the last month or so on here. Have I? Yes that is a rhetorical question. No answering back required. Thank you very much. For some strange reason my blog when I am not updating regularly is more popular in Russia than it is back here stateside.

Instead of blogging in the middle of the night like I usually do when I wake up at 2am or 3am; I have been reading lots and lots of fiction. No not the fiction that the Republicans in the this country actually do any good. That would be considered fantasy I think. I have been going through my latest 8-9 books that I have bought at used bookstores and have been catching up on baseball news as spring training has started.

The Schlewing household has a new addition. Her name is BooBoo and she is a 6 yr. old cat that my ex-manager has been asking me to take for the last 3 or 4 months as they have a bunch of puppies that have overtaken their house. BooBoo compared to our 12 yr. old tabby Jynx/Jinx is one amazing athlete. This cat likes heights. I keep finding evidence of her adventures near the highest points in the house. Places like the cupboards in the kitchen, the fireplace mantle (Michelin Man in the snow globe is now broken), dining room table, bathroom counters, wall unit shelves and one of her favorite spots which is the top of the fridge where she scared the living bejesus out of me the first time when I went in the fridge to grab a cold one after work. Harrison had a good laugh at my expense that first time as he had seen her but I didn't. In retrospect it was hilarious. This is a pic of her at her favorite spot in the house. I will have to learn how to use my droid camera without the flash. LOL. Yes that is fish oil tablets, sunscreen and candles. Yeah yeah I am getting old. Or am old. Whatever.



Been to a couple of Road Warrior games in the last month or so. I keep wanting to call them the Grrrowl like the previous incarnation of the team but they're really called a wrestling tag team name. As OMC sang in the 80s "How Bizarre".

I bought couple of tickets for the Darius Rucker show at the local amphitheater at the end of May. That is a sure sign of summer when they start booking shows there. Harrison got himself some tickets for Flaming Lips / Black Keys show at the same venue a little bit later in the season.

I am looking forward to the concert acts that will be named in the coming weeks for the Aloft 2013 Memorial Day weekend. This event is pretty darn cool and was until this year called Freedom Weekend Aloft. I saw an amazing Eddie Money performance there last year which I blogged about in June of last year I believe it was. I'd like to see a show with Cheap Trick or someone like that this year. That would be pretty darn cool! Last time I saw them was the Dream Police tour way back in the last century.

Okay I have some groceries to get. Going to make some guacamole and I am short a tomato or two and going to make a chicken breast egg noodle casserole thing for supper tonight and I may be missing an ingredient I believe.

I'll be back.