One Week: MULTIPLE POSTS

Today is a hodgepodge, largely because I have these three unrelated pictures and not very much interest in relating them.

Exhibit 1: Customer pays, I am on board with this. Joe shoves his head in the corner for good measure.


The Pug is a true neighborhood bar. How can I say this, you ask? It's only been open for a couple years!! I argue that the presence of an IOU in a bar constitutes neighborhoodiness. And there's one, right behind the apparition, stuck to the bell.

31 years later, I get my first pair of cowboy boots. Now I have to get jeans that can accompany them. These citified jeans I've been wearing are not gonna hack it.

Purchase!

Am presently purchasing my first-ever pair of cowboy boots:



Lucchese 1883 style what

Filling in the Gaps

For some reason, I didn't post this picture of the ridiculous sirloin at Blue Duck Tavern last week. I'm pretty sure it's the best steak I've ever had.


Updates!

+Jenny appropriately eulogizes the month of January, which is better known as the Month Without Achewood.

+When I was a kid, I wanted a pair of cowboy boots and a pickup truck. The boots part has come back with a vengeance. So I'm counting the days until I can spend way too much money on these.

Tuesday Picture Dump + The Changing of the Shoes III

I'm guessing that this, the third installment of the changing of the shoes, is the most inversely interesting topic of this phlog. That is, I like it and it's not likely that anybody else does. So what! This time I got a little more artsy.


Finally! The return of LOLPunk, this time as a multiple amputee


And Patrick, after recovering from his night of pouting and getting out of a cab because the driver had taken an illegal left turn,


And also finally got to look at pictures from Catie's wedding last month. First Ana was gonna fight her


But they made up.


Later, the girls all pointed at her.


Look at this ragtag bunch of knuckleheads!


Catie's mom was excited about devouring us all.


Last but not least, the picture that wins:



Oh yeah: dudes also dance back-to-back at weddings sometimes.

Nike=Liars. Does Nobody See This?

Anybody who really cares about Back to the Future--I mean really, really cares--wants a pair of the Nikes that Marty wears in 2015. People have been asking Nike to make replicas for years, to no avail.

Until now, right? Nike is doing a big Kobe promotion where he is in the Delorean and wears the shoes. They only made a few pairs, and they're going for $2000 on eBay. Which, if they were good replicas, like these, I think is worth it:


But they aren't. They don't even look like the ones from the movie--no super-high tops, no light-up soles, no auto-laces--even the coloring is all wrong. Look at this crap.

The Changing of the Shoes: Part II

It's happening every nine months now, it seems.


BONUSBONUSBONUS People who go to my bar are both drunks AND grammar nerds. Who corrects a flyer for a video game promotion in a bathroom? This person:

Also: Teebz and I went to Pho on Wednesday and it was empty. Sign #17 of the impending apocalypse.

Another Year Older and More Stuff, Plus+++!!!

Hey, Gang! I'm 30! The big 3-0! Over the hill! The new 20! For the festivities, all I asked for was what every red-blooded 30-year old would want: ice cream cake, candy, stuffed animals, t-shirts, DVDs, comic books and sneakers. Guess what? Mofos came through.

First, Noms got her friend who owns a Baskin-Robbins (we know people) to make an ice cream cake with a picture of me eating a frozen banana on it.


It was delicious.

Corrie and Jordan got me candy. M&Ms make dark chocolate peanut candy now. Game over.


Next, Wendy and Mikey got me a stuffed wildcat, which is the product of an extended inside joke that is much too bad to be shared here. Luckily, the stuffed wildcat can talk, which is just awesome enough to share here:

Joe got me T-Shirts from the show that he attended before the party; they're pretty awesome, but not nearly as awesome as the gift he gave me the next day.

Naomi got me this one:

Greg and Kyle gave me this picture:

Brian, who came as Michael's emissary (for some reason he couldn't make it--something about being "stranded" in "Japan"), gave me a "Lady Catchin' Sac." This means that he doesn't like Ana. Don't tell.

First part of the Lady Catchin' Sac is a DVD wherein Lyn teaches me some magic tricks:

Next is some sounds of puppies, kittens and more, with which to melt the hearts of the ladies:

And finally, fireside reflections with which to bed the ladies. I haven't tried the system yet, but I'm pretty sure it's failproof.

Other Brian gave me what looks to be the best family-friendly DVD of all time, starring Rupert Grant of Harry Potter fame:

That's right! It's about a youngster who can't stop farting and goes into space!


Kyle gave me fancy comic books. Perfect for eating candy with.



Joe got me some Atlanta-themed sneakers, which he thought I'd be interested in for some reason. Look! Atlanta likes sports cars!


Finally, Murph got me Windows XP so I could use my new phone. I decided, however, that it would be cooler to just wipe out my entire hard drive instead. How am I supposed to understand these directions?

I'm not, I say.

So I call Murph and tell him that compruter no work, and he proceeds to roll by and spend the next ten hours typing in "commands" into "interfaces" that in the end allow him to find most of the stuff that I erased. Thank God: a year's worth of pictures of my drunk friends have not been lost to the ether.


That, and then later Jesus gave me birthday snow!


BONUSBONUSBONUS

PJ's absentee owner requests an update.

Update: PJ still running the shit:


Look! Video proof that PJ is alive!

DeffoFoodReview: BistroTimeUSA

It's a little late, but we've never been to CENTRAL MICHEL RICHARD, and I have a camera now so it seemed like time for the first true DeffoReview of Foods.

CENTRAL MICHEL RICHARD is a "bistro," for the purposes of the fact that they wanted to make hamburgers and one can't do that at MICHEL RICHARD CITRONELLE, presumably for fear that people might mistake his high-end restaurant for a barbecue bug-b-gone device.

Anybody with two restaurants with his name in them has got to be a good chef, right? Of course! He's really good! How about the design of the place? As my dad likes to say, as a designer, he makes a really good chef. Nyuk! Narf!

Washingtonian notes the "endless blond wood, clean lines, and air of casual brilliance" in the dining room. Hey Ana! What do you think of that?


Yes. Big orbs scream casual brilliance.


"Blond wood" = fake and plastic, a la our most luxurious chain hotels!


But if you put delicious foods on top of plastic tables, it's still delicious. These things on the right are called "Gougères," which means either "cheese puff" or "venereal disease" depending on what the context is (for reals). Thinking about this linguistic overlap is gross, but the cheese puffs were really delicious.


Because the restaurant is on Pennsylvania Avenue, reviews always mention that "power brokers" "hobnob" there. The place was full, but I didn't see anybody powerbroking (unless you include our great overlord).

I did, however, see a middle-aged woman shoveling salad into her mouth with a strained look on her face like this:


But anyway. Less about me, more about food! Enough Tim Carmaning! (Side note: Hey Tim! How about a description of a dish at some point in your next review! Thanks!)

It's a bistro, but it's still fancy and frenchy, so I figured that my fried chicken would be a piece of chicken lightly breaded with a fancy sauce drizzled in an asymmetrical pattern over the top. In reality, the dish is 4' x 6' (see fig. below), and comes with 1.5 gal of creamy mustard sauce in a gravy boat, two whole perfectly-fried chickens, and 3lb of rich, creamy pureed potatoes.

Junk is delicious. For actualies.


Ana got "pied de cochon," which we assumed meant "to walk like a pig," i.e. some sort of slow-roasted dish. We were totally wrong. It actually means "ground up pig, wrapped in dough with spices and vegetables, and fried so as to look like a pig's foot." Trust me-the latter is infinitely more delicious than the former. They had to bring a new table to fit the 5' x 5' plate:

Then we had coffee.

(There you have it, people: the perfect food review. You're welcome.)

BONUSBONUSBONUS

Me and Riff Raff's Prom picture (look how short!):


OMG MURPH'S CHIN IS FREE, LADIES


Two new superheroes arise out of the mist, driven by their dramatically different shoe sizes:


Nerds remain nerds, people.