Matilda's Advice and Rants

Round Two - Food Wars

2008-07-11T15:38:00.002-05:00

Ding Ding! Laaaaaaaaaadies and Geeeeeeeeeentlemen, welcome to the second round of Foooood Warrrrrrs! This single elimination tournament is featuring the dives in downtown dogtown in a no-holds cage match of taste, service, value and all around good-grubness. The winner gets to face the next challenger and the loser gets kicked to the curb. Today's combatants are the Hotdog Stand vs The Circle cafe. Now, lets get our stomachs rrrrrready to rrrrrrrummmmmble!!

In this corner, last week's easy victor over the fancy seafood dump, our returning champ, the freestanding hotdog stand in front of Galaxy furniture. Same weaknesses as last week: no prices on the menu; dogs are fairly expensive for dogs; no air-conditioning since it is outdoors. Strengths: returning champ; dogs are good; no waiting.

In this corner we have The Circle. Located in a small storefront in the 400 block of Main, the Circle is an excellent place for a quick lunch or a dessert to go. Strengths: nice owners; they shop at the NLR farmers market (blueberries on sale at the market? look for blueberry shakes or pie at the Circle) so they have fresh ingredients; good solid food.

All of that is good, but this is straight Dog VS Dog action.... no chance for the hummus, the good sandwiches, or the tasty dessert to interfere in this matchup of hotdogs.

And the winner is.......in a split decision the hotdog stand wins again! Probably the better bun at the hotdog stand influenced the deciding judge's scorecard. Dog stand now stands at two and zero. Quite a surprising record for a free standing rolling cart in a block of real restaurants.

This Cinderella dogstand...coming out of nowhere....here in Argenta....... Who will the next opponent be? Tune in next week for the next bracket of Foooooood Warrrrrrrsss!

New Group/ New Site in Dogtown

2008-07-10T14:25:00.002-05:00

I understand that Park Hill has finally stepped up and started a group and a blog. Click on the title of the post above or go to http://groups.google.com/group/parkhill to visit the new site. The whole thing looks very promising for that neighborhood.

Parkhill is one of the strongest residential neighborhoods in the city and has been, well, since it was first developed in the 1920-30s, thanks to the foresight of Justin Matthews.

Even without $120,000,000* spent on capital improvements in our downtown, I bet there are no more vacant storefronts in Parkhill's larger retail area than in Argenta's. Parkhill is a great neighborhood. It is very exciting that people are forming a group to keep it that way.

*(Dollar calculations consist of a rough guess of 80 for the arena, 30 for the travs field, half of 13 for out side of the trolley, 1 for the riverfront park, toss in some street improvements along Main Street, and add an estimated 1 million plus for housing figured by looking at half the city's housing money being used in Argenta since about 1993.)

Food Wars -- Round One

2008-07-08T11:01:00.002-05:00

Ding! Ding! Laaaaadies and Geeeeentlemen, welcome to the first round of Food Wars. This is a single elimination contest featuring restaurants in the Argenta section of Dogtown. Winners advance to the next round and the next challenger. Losers get kicked to the curb. There are no weight classifications in this contest. We will pit any restaurant against any other one based solely on where we happened to have eaten. Brackets? Brackets?! We don't need no stinkin' brackets. All we need at this contest is just a healthy appetite, a willingness to eat at different dives downtown, and the ability to type. You know the rules. Now, lets get our bellies ready to RUMBLE!....

Today's matchup: The hotdog stand outside Galaxy Furniture VS The Argenta Seafood Company.

The hotdog stand comes into the contest with a wealth of recent publicity. It is a freestanding dogstand under the awning at Galaxy. Dogs are Nathan's dogs, as seen at the national hotdog eating contest on the fourth of July on ESPN. Dogs are available with onions, chilli, etc. Strengths: Nathans are good dogs; unique business in Argenta; short wait. Weaknesses: No prices on the menu; Dogs are expensive for dogs ($4.80); apparently not necessarily open every day.

The Argenta Seafood Company opened at the old S&S auto parts store, more recently the Teak Store. Food is upscale seafood. Strengths: Great building with clock on the front; local owners who also operate another restaurant in Argenta; fancy bar. Weaknesses: Our dinners were over-cooked; they scrimped on the bread; service was not as good as it should have been at a fancy restaurant; desserts were weak.

And the winner of Round One is......the hotdog stand. Even an expensive dog was much cheaper than the upscale fish and seemed like a better value to this chow hound.

Advancing to Round Two....The hotdog stand.

God Bless the Homeless!

2008-07-04T08:14:00.001-05:00

Everybody does it! Some just a little more publicly.

July is Food Month

2008-07-02T10:17:00.002-05:00

You drop out of sight for about five months and people forget you. Who was supposed to let us here at MARs know that July is the month for all bloggers to blog about food on a daily basis? Hmmmm? Well? No one is going to fess up, so we will be blogging about food here this month. On a daily basis? In your nightmares. We will blog...well, when we blog, but food will one steady subject this month.

If you haven't tried the farmers market in downtown Dogtown (next to the Post Office on Main Street) on Tuesdays and Saturdays (7:00 AM to Noon) you are missing out my friend. Unlike the market in the Rivermarket on the South side of the river, which will allow anyone to bring in crap and sell (old stuff from the grocery store? no problem. stopped by a wholesaler and now want to retail it to yuppies? no problem), this market is for Arkansas farmers who want to sell to Arkansas customers. Local. Fresh. Being sold by the actual people who grew it. Wow.

Over the past few weeks we have gleefully consumed the best plums ever, a great watermelon, excellent berries including the best blackberries ever, great corn on the cob, tasty and good-for-you beefalo burgers, and some freshly harvested and wonderful salads. I almost forgot to mention the cheese and eggs and beets and chicken and mushrooms. All of the stuff is grown here in Arkansas and some of it organically grown. Hmmm, grown and picked and sold locally versus stuff grown on the west or east coast or in another country and processed and handled by everyone between there and here. When it comes to taste, fresher is better and you can't really beat something hand picked that morning and eaten that evening. Yum.

Now if there was just a local twinkie factory, this Summer would be perfect.

(Tomorrow we plan to look at the state of food in our downtown here in Dogtown.)

If Only The Lottery Hits SOON!

2008-07-01T10:03:00.003-05:00

I will be able to afford the $5000.00 surcharge to have my picture taken with President Bush. Hmmmmmm. Which shirt should I wear?

or the one that says:

I'm Voting Republican!-NOT! Watch this Video

2008-06-26T07:05:00.001-05:00

The Colonel

McCain VS Bush

2008-06-20T10:48:00.003-05:00

I saw the first political ad yesterday. It was a McCain ad talking about how McCain opposed President Bush on global warming five years ago. Of course it failed to mention that McCain missed every major environmental vote in the Senate last year.

So it looks like McCain is going to try and run away from Bush, which is understandable given Bush's push for lowest approval rating of any American president. Still it will be hard for McCain, since he supports every major Bush failure.

Somehow I don't think McCain will be able to run away from his sucking up to Bush at every turn. These pictures will come back to haunt him, as they should. Hardly "maverick" behavior.

On the Upcoming Parking Debacle

2008-06-13T12:17:00.005-05:00

Sometimes we forget about unintended consequences, and typically it is to our detriment. Dogtown's city council is about to discover exactly what those consequences are and how detrimental good intentions can sometimes be. According to today's Arkansas Democrat some of the aldermen are pushing to give residents the opportunity to establish block by block parking districts. They are pursuing this in response to complaints from residents about insensitive jerks who are less than neighborly in their parking habits. Referring to parking problems, the paper quotes one Alderman as saying, " I hear from the same people on the same streets all the time."

According to the paper, complete blocks or groups of contiguous blocks could band together and with a 2/3rds vote enact their own little parking district. Sounds good, right? Democracy in action.

Lets look a little further.

Does the 2/3rds vote required refer to residents living on the street? Those old enough to drive? Or to vote? Home owners only? Renters included? One vote per household, or is it one per resident? Is it by amount of property owned? (So one big lot could trump two or three smaller ones?) How often can you hold the "elections"? What if one family, or person who cast the vote that put the district over the top, moved? Could we be holding these elections every time someone new moves into a neighborhood? Who makes sure only qualified voters are casting their ballots and who certifies the results? It sounds like a nightmare.

Lets say the voting issues are taken care of, and every block in the city can now decide its own parking regulations. Every district will have to have signs posted to inform everyone of the rules. The last time I drove through Argenta and looked, their small restricted resident parking area required about four signs per block. Expanding this city wide will prove to be a huge expense for the city, which of course will not charge residents for the signs, the installation, the removal, the updates, and reinstallation and re-removal of signs as the winds of parking wishes change for every block in the city. Signs aren't cheap. Installation, maintenance, and removal are even more expensive. What a huge financial burden to dump on the city at this time. Better raise rates again to pay for this one.

Lets say the city has bitten the costly financial bullet and made the signs (different ones for each parking district since there will be different desires in each district), sunk the poles in concrete for all the signs on each block (make sure if you support this that you volunteer to have a sign erected in your yard because a lot of people don't appreciate signs, poles, concrete in their yard/gardens), and erected the signs all across the city. {Lets take a moment and reflect on the beauty of four new signs per block across the city listing the parking regulations for each particular block....my, how beautiful....almost Springdale-like. Good thing the council put in all that work on the Sign Ordinance so we could use that now-empty airspace to stop that one bad neighbor from parking how we don't want him too.} Now comes the best part....enforcement.

If the city's Code Enforcement Dept is charged with enforcing the myriad of parking regulations, you can count on nothing being done in the evenings and on weekends. They work regular hours and will not be in your neighborhood ticketing neer-do-wells in the evenings and on weekends, when is probably the time when most crappy parking is done.

If the Police Dept is charged with writing the tickets and towing folks you should perhaps look to Argenta, with its restricted parking currently in place, to see how the enforcement is working down there. Try driving 8th Street in Argenta and around that neighborhood some evening and see how many folks are still parking in their yards, on the sidewalks, over the curbs, or otherwise illegally. Do an FOI request and see how many tickets are being written and how many cars are being towed. I believe you will find there is no enforcement downtown about yard-parking or sidewalk blocking. If the activist folks in Argenta cannot get enforcement of their restricted areas (both the Dickey-Stephens area and the regulations of the Historic District) what chance in hell do the folks in Levy or Rose City have, where police officers actually have a lot more "real" enforcement issues to take care of? The answer is....none.

The last time I looked, parking on the sidewalk was already illegal, abandoned vehicles were covered by existing statutes, and commercial vehicle parking in residential neighborhoods was already prohibited. If those problems are persisting, perhaps enforcement rather than new regulation should be looked at. If the Aldermen think they are getting calls now, just wait until all the calls about the elections, the sign locations, and the fact that bad neighbors are still parking poorly start coming in.

Looks like this well-intentioned bit of legislation will be a logistical nightmare, a failure of great fiscal expense, and the ugliest esthetic development for our city since the installation of the first billboard. Unless, of course, you want your neighborhood to look like Highway 71 in Springdale.

40 Years Ago I Cried Like a Baby When I Heard Teddy Give This Eulogy for Bobby--

2008-06-06T16:38:00.002-05:00

Take 10 minutes and gather up your kids and watch this with them. Tell them about this great man who was taken from us before he even got started.

Barack Obama can do this again. Our country needs him now...

4 More Years? I Think Not.

2008-05-31T04:47:00.000-05:00

Riverfest Review

2008-05-28T16:54:00.003-05:00

Rock Candy over at Max's Arkansas Times Blog has a nice review of Riverfest. Max jumped on the closing of the Junction Bridge except for VIPs during the fireworks and that opened a can of worms in the comments section with complaints ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime.

There were a few complaints about the Dogtown side of the event. One person wrote that the entrance was too narrow and the cops wouldn't let people use the ramps up to the Main Street Bridge. Lets see, two entrances this year - one under the Main Street Bridge is about 10 feet wide and the other at the torpedo (used by folks crossing over the Junction bridge) is about twice that, both at ground level...as opposed to using the ramp up to the Main Street Bridge which has about a four foot wide gap to get on the bridge itself and is about twenty feet up in the air. When I do the math it looks like public safety to keep the bridge fenced off and use the at-ground entrances. There was an extra exit this year at Willow Street which didn't really show up on the Riverfest map.

There were a couple of complaints about the costs including one about over-priced beer and one lamenting charging 20.00 per person. I can only assume these folks don't get out to events much. $4.00 per beer is pretty standard with $5 being charged at some concerts locally. As far as the ticket price, if you will go to Harvest Food before the event you can get in for $10 a ticket. Rather than whine about having to spend $20, try planning ahead one day, or look at any other concert in Central Arkansas where tickets range from $35 and up on the day of the show.

One person wanted corridors provided for those buying food and to the exit-only at the Willow Street entrance. That person should have the job of enforcing corridors when there are twelve thousand people in an seven thousand person park. Personally, I was just glad the exit was there this year and the stage further back than last year. Exiting there was easy after the event and I missed all the hassle of the Main Street exit traffic jam - now a Riverfest tradition. Having the Junction Bridge folks use the torpedo exit also helped with crowd control.

Every year the weird little trams that are pulled by tractors over the bridge ran on Sunday until just before the fireworks then they stopped for the night. I guess this year Riverfest decided not to strand people who couldn't make the walk over the bridge on one side or the other. The Main Street Bridge is closed following the fireworks until the bridge is checked for unexploded fireworks and swept of debris from the show. I think the Junction Bridge opened immediately following the fireworks which is the one most folks used anyway.

I was unhappy when I heard the Junction Bridge was closed during the fireworks without a VIP pass until I read the comments and found that tickets were available to anyone attending the bridge opening and had in fact been available at some local restaurants. So much for exclusivity and big wigs only. I can see that leaving the bridge open for anyone during the fireworks would kill any chance of actually using the bridge to cross the river before the fireworks even start. (Try going to NLR and walking down the sidewalk along the river two hours prior to the fireworks. You will find it clogged with lawn chairs filled with folks who don't give a hoot about the music and are just there for the fireworks. Multiply that by about 1000 times and you would see what "gridlock" really means on the Junction Bridge.) Plus I imagine the fire marshals on both the LR and NLR sides might have something to say about clogging the bridge with chairs and thousands and thousands of people with only two exits and an elevator in between. I like Max's idea of selling (actually I like the idea of giving better) the tickets on a first come basis a week or two ahead of Riverfest. Maybe at the thing held at the River Market where Riverfest announces its acts for the event.

Over all, it was what Riverfest is every year, only more so this year. Hot, humid, muddy in spots, with some good music if one is willing to put up with way too many people. Personally, I would vote for more exits, more space, and more stages in NLR. Anything to disperse the mass of humanity on Sunday night over a larger area.

Riverfest should look at moving East down to the Clinton Library site and make the whole thing a circle (assuming the LibFound ever really does redo the Rock Island Bridge). Stretch it from the amphitheater to the library and from Willow Street to the RI Bridge on both sides. Have three pedestrian bridges (Rock Island, Junction, and Main Street) and run trolleys over the Main Street Bridge.

As far as the event itself, I thought Sawyer Brown was excellent. ZZ Top was good but would have been enjoyable if one could have gotten closer than a half mile away. Saturday's music was ok.

The best thing about the whole event was the jumping dogs. Bring them back and add some dog agility contests and then we will be talking. After all, It's Riverfest in Dogtown, Baby!!

At Last, A Temporary Respite

2008-05-21T09:39:00.003-05:00

Well, the election results are in for the judicial races and the Democratic and Publican primaries. I held my nose and voted for the unopposed Democrats. I voted "for" because Vic Snyder was listed. I held my nose because Republican-lite Mark Pryor was there too.

Looks like the voters rejected the challengers who weren't informed on county issues like protecting Lake Maumelle, our drinking water, from threatening developments. Gosh, gonna run for office? Try reading up on the major issues first. Then ask for my vote.

Overall, it looks like progressives won most of the races, which is nice.

Now we can gird our loins for the onslaught of political candidates who want to trim fat from budgets and want to eliminate waste in government. I always have to wonder where they were last year and the years before that when those budgets were being discussed and debated and voted on. But, enough of that is to come. Now I can bask for a short time in the lack of robo-calling to my house in support of one nabob or another.

BLOPS Grilling Accessory

2008-05-16T15:51:00.004-05:00

Shit.

2008-05-16T15:18:00.002-05:00

That's how I feel. Where the hell is Edna. My mind is turning to mush. EDNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNA??? Come home.

A Rough Ride

2008-05-11T00:26:00.000-05:00

Right Out Of The BLOPS Latrine

2008-05-04T11:52:00.001-05:00

TEN HUT you pussies

2008-05-03T07:44:00.000-05:00

The Colonel here. This war must end. We must not elect John McCain who will simply be more of the same. Hill Ain't Bill and Barack are ripping each other to shreds. People's emotions are on edge. We must not forget what is important.

Get some tissues and click here for a very well done video by one of our soldiers far from home.

At ease.

From The Holy Freaking Shit Files

2008-04-30T20:14:00.003-05:00

I admit it. I am a shoe whore. But these -- they are reportedly Japanese designed. Anyone interested in a pair? These are not what threw me for a loop. Scroll on down to those shoes worn by the Geishas...

Unbelievable huh? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Behold a retired Geisha....

Unbelievable. Unfreakingbelievable.

Even Dogs Won't Do Some Things

2008-04-27T13:56:00.001-05:00

Too Cool Food Art

2008-04-24T05:16:00.000-05:00

The FireSnatch Chronicles 042308

2008-04-23T00:12:00.012-05:00

Sunday brunch was a riot this past weekend. The sister girls had a few mimosas beforehand and were feeling no pain. Lilly broached the recent controversy over the proposed Cupid’s in Park Hill. One-third of us live in Park Hill, and she was incensed that one day she heard the store was going in and then the next day a church mob had formed and promptly scared them off.

That opened another kettle of fish. “Religious fanatics! Why would people be scared of Cupid’s?” she demanded. “It’s a clean store. Pervs don’t hang out there. I love that store. Have you seen who goes in those places? Women. Lots of women. I know why those Park Hill prudes (hey now) ran them off. The church men are afraid their wives will find out they like sex toys more than them! They would find their mission-style-only asses kicked to the curb. Those women probably never even had an orgasm. They just think they have. Or they fake it. I’m sure their husbands never saw When Harry Met Sally. A bunch of religious fanatics!“

No more mimosas for Lilly. We don’t normally talk about such things as we agree what two (or three if you’re so inclined) consenting adults do and what they do it with behind closed doors is their private business. Sex is a wonderful gift that should be enjoyed as long as you are physically able. I personally wish the store had gone in, but putting a sexually oriented business on Church Row? What were they thinking?

That reminded me of a day at my mother’s around Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. She and the little stepdad “got retarded” and moved permanently to their kicked up fishing shack on the lower Saline River. What goes on there, stays there, they always say, and a large time is usually had by all who visit. One of Mom’s best friends from high school, Mavis, was home for the holidays. It was early afternoon. I was passed out on the couch after drinking way to many coffees and Bailey’s Irish Cream. Don’t judge me. Sometimes it’s the only way I can cope being at my mother’s.

Now I wasn’t intending to eavesdrop, but I woke up while they were sitting on the back porch swilling Old Milwaukee and getting drunker than shit. I laid there listening to them, wishing I had a tape recorder. Mavis always cries on Mother’s shoulder. This time she was complaining all Harley (her husband) did and had done for years was watch porn. She said she often cried herself to sleep and “just clawed the bed” because she needed him so bad.

I couldn’t take it anymore. “FOR GOD'S SAKE MAVIS, BUY A VIBRATOR!”

She looked like I just told her she was dying. My mother yelled “Young lady, what’s the matter with you?” I said, “Mother, first of all, I’m not a young lady, and Mavis you know I love you, but Mavis and Harley have been married 45 years, and she has been miserable for most of them. Second, because of that Catholic shit, they can’t get a divorce and she has to live with him anyway while he spends his time watching porn with Mother Thumb and her four daughters. At least if she had a vibrator, she wouldn’t be clawing the bed anymore and would be in a much better mood to deal with Harley and his shit.”

Mother and Mavis were both speechless. I couldn’t help it. I started laughing hysterically. “Hell, I’ll even go buy you one. Nothing fancy. A real basic model. But please don’t ask me to show you how to use it. Just point it in the general direction and you’ll figure it out."

Mavis’s ability to speak returned. “Just who IS Mother Thumb and her four daughters?”

She was kidding right? This was going to be harder than I thought. “Don’t worry. You know them intimately,” I assured her. “I’ve been thinking -- Harley’s so anal, he could use a butt plug.”

“A butt what?” Mavis asked. “Oh no, he’s constipated already.”

Mother was mortified. “Y’ALL QUIT IT!” “I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!”

“Mother, now don’t you be gettin’ all uppity and stuff, because I remember not too long ago, after “4 or 2 beers”, you pooted in the produce section at Wal-Mart and then LOUDLY announced to all within earshot that you had stepped on a carpet frog. I'm sure that poor guy you gassed nearby has still not recovered. I can’t even go in there anymore because the checkers in the first three lanes all recognize me and point when I come in. I am known as The Daughter of the Carpet Frog Lady. My humiliation is complete.”

I was promptly banished to the smaller kicked up fishing shack next door reserved for company. The Dew Drop Inn. I was crushed. Can you tell? Peace at last.

Get this. I did send Mavis a little present in a box with a brown wrapper. The next time I saw her, she sat down and put her arm around me. “Thanks,” she said. And winked.

One of the most ridiculous moments in this campaign

2008-04-20T23:34:00.001-05:00

It was so crazy to see Hillary knocking back a shot and chasing it with a beer? And then she talked about going shooting with her father on the farm? Jeez.

What's next, sucking on a big ole bong to try and get the old hippie's votes? She is such a pandering politician.

Plus I'm listening to one of Hillary's people on the televsion talking about how the polls are not reliable. This after being quizzed about some of the polls now showing Obama ahead of her in Pennsylvania. Funny how they say that now yet when Hillary was ahead they consistently talked about how well they were "polling".

I'm about sick of Hillary's desperate attempt to circumvent the will of the people.

Winning the War on Drugs---Right...

2008-04-20T10:15:00.001-05:00

The Best Birthday Present. Ever.

2008-04-18T07:30:00.009-05:00

It’s official. Delish’s fat ass is 50.

The moment I stepped in my office, I knew the birthday antics had commenced. I found this when I opened my office door –

Someone bought me my latest Mini Cooper obsession. Isn't it cute?

And more balloons – My girlfriends are the best. Note BIG 30!

Cake too. Red Velvet. Ummmm...

And look what work bitches did to my Jeep:

I had to drive home with it like this. Almost had two wrecks. Paybacks are hell.

The sister friends chose this evening for our night out. They didn’t want to have to get up and go to work after a late night. We’re supposed to go to the Electric Cowboy. I protested (we’re probably going to die) but they insisted I needed to at least go in the door once. I've lived in the metro Little Rock area for 28 years next month, and I have never set foot in that place, BJ's or otherwise. Things don’t even get going there until about 11:00 p.m. PM FERFUCKSAKE. They are picking me up at 10:45 p.m. P.M. FERFUCKSAKE. Although I never really wanted to, I guess I am going to have to go. Once.

So birthday happy hour beers and shots were going to be with my guys. The best guys. My favorite men in the world, most of whom I’ve known 20 years. Every once in a blue moon, they let me, a FEMALE (a/k/a an NBNB - that is "No Balls No Brains"), crash their macho, men-only “choir practice.” We met at Rocky’s in the Indian Hills shopping center, one of their favorite stops. It sure made points with me when I discovered they had Fat Tire on draft! Rocky’s authentic Philly cheesesteaks are becoming legend, and it’s going on my regular chickenrun.

I'd been warned by the sister girls not to get drunk because they knew I was already in bad shape and a late night could be the kiss death to the sister girls’ monumental birthday night out. I promised I would behave. Choir practice normally doesn’t run past 6:30 or so (choir members are old). We lost a couple about then, but the rest of us headed to My Friend’s Place to shoot some pool and sit a spell because, well, it was a nice night to sit a spell. My Friend’s Place is a great little neighborhood bar. Check it out sometime.

We sat down at a table outside on the patio, and a couple of girls and a guy were sitting at another table fairly close to us. One of the guys at our table said something about it being my birthday, and then one of the girls at the other table asked “It’s your birthday?’ “Yes” I said, “my 50th”. She says, “you’re 50?” And then all of a sudden the guy at their table looked at me and said “You are BEAUTIFUL!” Was he drunk? I'm sure he was well on his way, but his timing was impeccable. There is no substitute for those words, the words you usually hear from those who love you, but rarely from a total stranger. It was the best birthday present. Ever.

I think I’m going to be okay with this 50 shit. Maybe the day just had to pass. Maybe it was the hot monkey sex. Maybe writing about it helped/helps me. I’ve been toying with the idea of posting The FireSnatch Chronicles somewhere else since MARs may not be the appropriate forum. I’m sure our three readers will let me know or I'll hear from those who share Melroy's fat chick obsession.

Oh, and as a side note, senility has already begun to set in. Last night when I crawled my drunk ass into bed AT 12:45 A.M. (Dear God), I made sure I set my alarm. I don’t know what time I finally fell asleep but it seemed like it had been just five minutes when that BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP scared me awake. As it is my routine every morning, I roll (this time stumbled) out of bed, open the bedroom door, my two cats rush my feet, I do a small hurdle over them to the bathroom to tweedle, feel my way around the kitchen for Fancy Feast (the fucking fluorescent light over the sink takes 3 minutes to come on – one of several projects my brother has on his honey-do list), feed the cats, and since the light still hasn’t come on, I feel my way to my office computer to check my email. My vision begins to focus on the time in the lower right-hand corner, and much to my chagrin, it is 4:03 a.m. and I am wide awake. Somehow, when I set the alarm, I also set my clock time ahead. One hour. I sure needed that hour. I'm old. Damn.