mrs w's blog

mrs wintermute has launched her blog!

it's flipping sweet.

so check out isadore quagmire at http://exileinmiami.blogspot.com/

new home

well, we're here. did the drive in about ten hours. my enjoyment was greatly amplified by the purchase on an i-book. not just any ibook.

'the rise of darth of vadar.'

set about a month after episode iii ends, it has much of what episodes i-iii lacked: real depth of character, interesting plot twists, plus it has good sound effects.

mrs wintermute is awesome for indulging me. but truth be told, within an hour or two, we were discussing the plot twists and noting key trivia (like name of bail organa's wife, and the name of the asteroid where padme died). the coolest part of the book is that it gets inside anakin's head and shows how miserable he is to be darth vadar. the suit sucks for him.

around 8 we roll into town and hit skyline for dinner. i had supressed my expectations in fear that it could have been an honest but inferior homage. nope. it's the real fucking thing. it tasted so good. and there was tons of cincinnati stuff on the wall. in fact, there were many of the high schools' memoriabilia on the walls, but none of the gold old aviators! it made me proud of of hometown for 20 minutes, i have promised myself to bring them some kind of sycamore t shirt on my next trip. it's amazing, but not only does mrs. w dig skyline, but her room mates do, too (one of them is from ohio).

relaxing at home felt like being on the set of scrubs meets grey's anatomy. the three of them launched into clinical speak. i was like errr, i don't understand anything you're saying. the part of about how when you open the stomach cavity, intenstines pop out like snakes from a joke can, and are in fact really warm, was pretty interesting.

oh yeah, there are lizards everywhere.

do any of these things sound good to you?

do any of these things sound good to you?

• a dark dingy bar with low ceilings
• tall boy PBRs for $2
• songs by marilyn manson, ac/dc, danzig, whitesnake, garbage, lita ford, guns & roses, van halen, def lepperd, buckcherry, journey, and pantera
• a metal band that blows out your eardrums with sweet guitar tap solos, monster drums, and just the right touch of keyboards
  
• singers with names like mathias and bubba and wear kilts and long blonde hair down to their shoulders
• rocking out with one arm raised, fist closed, index and pinky fingers extended, headed nodding in 4/4 time
  
• a dude who celebrates his wedding anniversary by singing 'feels like the first time' for his wife
• punk chicks, goth chicks, big chicks, and even a few cougars
  

well, all of these things sound fucking awesome to me. that's why metalsome mondays at 10 high in the highlands is the coolest freaking event of the week. every modnay night (and saturday, too), the house metal band will play the song of your choice to karaoke to. you get to stand up there like a bad ass arena hair rocker and kick ass. having virtually shaved my head last weekend (ok, there's about 1 cm of hair left), i felt a bit less dweeby than normal. ok, having the two hottest chicks in the place next to me helped a lot, too.

i can't believe i went for the first time 4 days before the move to florida.

but i will be back.

new bike

i'm in the market for a new bike, since i won't have a car at my new place.

any suggestions (make, model, etc)? bloodninja, i know you're in a similar boat.

i'd like to spend under $400. used is fine.

it's skyline time

yesterday, mrs. wintermute finished data collection on her dissertation. a major, major milestone. in five days, we make the move to florida. half the drive friday, pull into ft. lauderdale saturday afternoon.

this deal is sounding better every day. the weather is great, it's a short direct flight, and i'm going to get to be down there 2-3 weeks at a time, thanks to my very flexible and understanding boss. telecommuting will be sweet. i'll wake and i'll be ready for work. even better, i'll be AT work. i won't miss the 40 drive to alphacrappa each morning.

oh, and 1 mile from the beach.

but by far, the best surprise is that the skyline chili is 1.5 miles from mrs. w's new place.

the nectar of the gods. 5 minutes away.

Shyam Reddy for Geogia Secretary of State

Fellow emory alum Shyam Reddy is running for georgia secretary of state.

he's a great dude and will make a great leader for georiga.

vote this week! and vote for Reddy.

he has the endorsement of the ajc (our crappy atlanta newspaper).

i'm not really into telling people how to vote, so the best thing to do is check out his website (click here) and decide for yourself.

but if you need them, here are three great reasons to vote for Reddy:

1. he's a democrat (no-brainer here)
2. he's young and not a business-as-usual politician
3. he's a centrist

oksana is o-wsome

oksana baiul returns to tv as one of three judges on the completely lame but completely entertaining 'master of champions.'

the competitors are mildly interesting. i like how the show plays up at least one each competitor each night who is 'doing it for the kids.' however, the real show is oksana, former olympic figure skater (i think she was a gold medalist the year that the kerrigan-harding shit went down).

oksana stumbles through every episode. she hit a new peak last night when she donned skates on the faux-ice (two ice skaters were competing for who could spin the fastest while wrapping themselves in toliet paper). the host asked her who the ice felt. she rambled incoherently about the hollywood dream and being on tv.

it's like watching a train wreck. i love it.

last night was cool also because the nerdy team (there's one every episode) won the whole competition for building a flipping sweet rube goldberg contraption. turns out both mrs. wintermute and i used to do the same thing as kids. in fact, she won a team competition in 8th grade.

volunteer work

there are a lot of milfs at the children's museum

passing of an icon

rocky tucker, who owned and ran rocky's liquor store, was murdered in his driveway over the weekend.

rocky was responsible for generations of emory parties. his store was the go-to place for errr, supplies. going to rocky's was a rite of passage for emory freshman.

this is really sad. the emails have just started rolling in.

here's the ajc article:

Store owner's killing leaves friends aghast
Chandler Brown, Mary Lou Pickel - Staff
Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Luis Olguin bought his first beer at Rocky's Package Store on Briarcliff Road when he was a student at Emory University.

"He was such a nice guy," Olguin, now 26, said of the store's namesake, Shamsher "Rocky" Tucker, who was killed over the weekend. "He knew his customers by name. He was an Emory icon."

The longtime store owner was gunned down early Sunday in the driveway of his Stone Mountain home, police say.

Tucker, 34, who recently got married, worked at the store late into Saturday night, police and friends said, before heading home with his wife, Rupinder, in their new BMW.

When they pulled into their driveway on Deer Lake Trail about 1 a.m. Sunday, at least two armed men in a black SUV blocked the car, according to family friend Jawad Shah, who said he heard the wife describe the crime to police. Police and Shah said Tucker pulled a gun from under his seat and fired. At least one of the gunmen returned fire, hitting Tucker, police said. He died in his wife's arms, Shah said.

Tucker, whose funeral was attended by about 350 people Monday, also leaves behind a daughter from a previous relationship, an older brother and his parents."It's torn off a part of me," said longtime friend Pawan Kapoor.

"He didn't care what color you look like or what religion you had," Shah said, adding that the couple returned from their honeymoon the week before the shooting. "He was a wonderful human being. If you meet him once, you'll always remember him."

No arrests had been made Monday evening, said DeKalb County police spokesman Herschel Grangent. Tucker had taken home the store receipts and intended to deposit them Monday morning, Shah said. Shah said the gunmen did not take the money.

As friends and family members mourned Monday afternoon, customers dropped off flowers and cards at the darkened store, which is in a strip mall near LaVista Road.

"We raise a toast to you. We'll miss you buddy," read one of the cards. Said another: "A good guy doesn't deserve this."

One woman collapsed into sobs when a bystander told her Tucker was dead.

"Oh my God, I can't believe he's gone," she cried, running to her car.

"That's the kind of customers he had," said Irv Christiansen, a beer distributor who knew Tucker well. "He didn't always have the lowest prices, but people kept coming back because he treated them right."

superboner

in mrs wintermute's hometown for the holidays. hanging w/ the rent-in-laws.

all of my credibility as a forecaster of world cup games is gone. i kept telling bloodninja not to worry about the first round games, that i would have the elimination round games correct, and that we would do fine in his office pool.

so much for that. brazil, losing to france? portugal, beating england?

so it's an all-europe finals.

so now we know that superman gave his superboner to lois lane. dude, that has got to be a tough act to follow. i mean, every dude is anxious about how he measures up to those who have traversed here before. but finding out that your chick was riding superman?!?!