Salary cap needed?

Well the Yankees have done it again. Busted open the check book and paid over $400 million on 3 free agents this year. People all over the baseball world are crying for a salary cap. Baseball as we know it is over!

This is what I think about the players NY brought in. CC is good, better in the NL. He had a horrible start last season. It'd be interesting to see how New York handles him if he does the same. AJ Burnett. Whoopee! He's a Ben Sheets, he'll be hurt in a week. Mark Texiera... I guess this guy's incredible? I don't know, I just don't see these three players as some dominating force that's gonna march the Yankees right to the world series. To watch them fail this year would be hilarious. It'd be a hell of a side story. The past few years I could of cared less about the Yankees but now I have a reason to hate them again, and that makes the sport more entertaining to me. A salary cap is not needed. Free agents aren't the only thing that makes baseball teams win. It's sad that small market teams have trouble keeping their favorite players around but so be it. Small market teams have found a lot of success while the big spenders -- NY, Boston, Anaheim, Cubs fail. People can whine about how teams like the pirates and royals will never have a shot but hell, lets look at football. We got the Lions and the Raiders. Poorly managed teams are just that... poorly managed teams. Throwing money at the problem won't fix it.

Another point. I love baseball because of the amount of strategy involved. Before every pitch, there are a million scenarios going on in managers heads. It's fun as a fan to second guess their decisions. The same holds true for building a team. The art of building a small market team is fascinating to me. It's no fun knowing that you can just go ahead and buy the best 3 guys in the market and maybe bring your city a world series. I love the hope that the minor league brings. It's also fun knowing that you built a team "legitimately." Our team is made up of true Milwaukee brewers. Most of them know nothing else, and I love that.

So free agency aside, what do we have to look forward to next year? I think we got a good team. Everyone was optimistic at the beginning of last season and the only significant player we're missing is Sheets. We lose Sheets every year, who cares. I think a ton our players underperformed -- especially during the second half. Weeks, Hart, Hall, and Fielder are better hitters than they showed us last season. Braun obviously was hampered by that rib cage injury during the second half. Maybe the new manager can get the best out of these bats. If that happens, look out. I'm excited to watch Brewer baseball next year and you should be too. GO BREWERS!

Disgusted and Annoyed

The Packers followed their 2008 script all over again. Suck at the beginning of the game. Look good for 15 minutes. Lose in a game ending drive. This is the most pathetic packer season I ahve ever watched. Yesterday was the first time I can ever remember choosing not to even watch. I don't even know what happened in the second half nor do I care. This team was an absolute joke this year and because of them we're forced to watch the Vikings act like they accomplished something this year. The Defensive line has been a joke since the days of Reggie White in Green Bay. I haven't seen the threat of a pass rush in 15 years. We have plenty of cap room to grab free agents but we keep doing this draft thing. Drafting good players is nice but it seems like in the past 5 years we haven't drafted anyone who'd be considered a star in the nfl. I think that's a pretty bad track record. I also think this has nothing to do with the whole Favre thing. That situation was what it was and we did what we had to there. It's the rest of the team that sucked. Thanks for nothing Green Bay. We'll see how you look in 8 months. The only thing I have holding me over until baseball season is a slight interest in Marquette Bball but that doesn't even get exciting until March. This sucks.

Restaurant Reviews

Katie and I have been to a ton of Milwaukee restaurants over the past couple months and I figured I'd tell you what I thought out of a 5 star rating system.

Chez Jacques - French food. Really like the design of the place. It's located on 1st street kind of in the middle of nowhere. Awesome wall art in all the different dining rooms, and I hear they have a pretty cool outdoor seating area, but it was too cold outside . Simple menu, doesn't overwhelm you with too many choices. We loved the french onion soup and the escargot. Didn't think the entrees were too impressive. Katie went with the classic beef burgundy and I did some veal medalian special. Both entrees were tough. Presentation was pretty weak. Katie's almost looked like a pile of alpo. Food wasn't terrible but it just wasn't that good. Waitress was nice and I'm pretty sure the owner was the french guy hanging out at the bar. I like it when the owners are present. Wine was fairly priced. So I'll go ahead and give this one 3 stars.

Riviera Maya - Mexican food. This place is down in bayview. Great place to go if you'd want a non rushed, classier mexican location. They're supposedly known for their various moles -- pretty much just mexican sauces. They have a standard mexican menu with the whole taco and enchilada deal. Then they give you the mole options. You choose from a list of 5 moles and then pick a meat or veggie filler. All entrees start with a deliciously simple and complimentary tortilla soup. I went with the verde sauce with their pork and I think katie did a chocolate mole with a vegetarian filler that consisted of peppers, corn, and rice. We both liked the food, nothing mind blowing, but it was pretty good. Service was slow/confusing/inattentive but the food and atmosphere made up for that. Almost forgot, they have a pretty unique margarita list. Wasn't really a fan myself but katie seemed to enjoy hers. And they have the best flan around. I recommend you check this place out. I'll give it 3.5 stars.

Water Buffalo - Crap food. The service, location, and decor was nice. The food was awful. We got a steamed clam appetizer to start, I thought they tasted like melted rubber and salt. I tried squirting the lemon from my water on them. That made them slightly more tolerable. Our entrees were blah. I'm pretty sure everything they serve at this place is shipped to them frozen and they just reheat it. Seems like no prep work at all is done in this kitchen. Katie got the ahi tuna. Crappy frozen reheated fish. I got some pasta dish, it was so bad I can't even recall what it was supposed to be. Something stuffed with something. It's like they threw every spice and seasoning they could find in the thing. The menu did have a variety of sandwiches. I'd recommend going that route if you are forced to go here. Can't really screw up a sandwich... or can you? If anyone can, it'd be them. Food was over priced for it's quality level. 2 stars.

Harry's Bar and Grill - American food. I really like this place. It is what it is. The menu is a little large for my liking but the staff was friendly, the food was simple and good, and everything was fairly priced. No real surprises here, you know what you're getting and you usually end up liking it. Katie got a club sandwich and whined about how it was too big to eat but that's about it for complaints. I did some ahi tuna sandwich. It tasted like I thought it would and seeing how I ordered it... that's a good thing. I'd recommend this place more as a lunch spot opposed to dinner. I heard people complain about the place poorly handling large crowds during dinner. I'll give this one 4 stars.

Mikey's - American food. You can find this place right by cathedral square next to Louise's. Loved the food, service was good, decor sucked big time. I don't like dining and listening to techno dance beats all night. Music was so loud it made it difficult to talk. I ordered a veal medallion deal that was served alongside a mushroom risotto. Absolutely loved it. Katie got a chicken cordon bleu type thing. She wasn't a fan so she let me finish hers, I loved that as well. We started off with a tuna tartar appetizer which pretty much every new restaurant in the word is featuring and I thought it was great. Again, Katie wasn't the biggest fan. I thought the food was good enough to make up for the annoying atmosphere so I'll go ahead and give this place 4 stars as well.

Mimmas - Italian food. This place has been around for awhile over on brady street. The service was decent, the food was decent, the wine list is pretty impressive. Got things going with a bottle of valpolicella. Their wine list is almost 100% italian and Katie and I are mainly familiar with California wines so we kind of closed our eyes and picked one. We both loved it. As for the food... Katie and I started with a beef carpaccio appetizer. Excellent. It was the largest carpaccio plate I've ever seen. We then had a soup and salad. I went with their cioppino and Katie had a house salad with a balsamic dressing that she loved. Soup was good but a little too acidic. I got a lobster stuffed ravioli topped with all sorts of seafood. The entree was ok, but I expected something mindblowing, so i was a little upset. Katie got something in the line of a chicken primavera. Overall she liked it but I think she expected better as well. I'd expect a little better out of a $100+ dinner, but it was good. One complaint: the menu consists of like 70 pastas. That may be an exaggeration but it was ridiculous. You needed a good 15 minutes just to get through the thing. A lot of the entrees were similar and I felt the menu could be dumbed down a bit. I'll give this one 3.5.

Rustico - pizza place. Not a fan at all. Terrible service, boring pizza, crap wines, awesome location. If they've got anything going for them it's the fact that they're cheap. We weren't even offered water. I have no idea how the place can afford to pay their third ward rent. I wouldn't be surprised to see this place take a dive in the next year. HORRIBLE. Please don't go here. Oh, I guess I should mention that Katie absolutely loved their caesar salad. So 1/2 star - for having a decent salad dressing.

Conejitos - Their pens don't lie. The best mexican food in the world. 5 stars. enough said.

I wrote this really quick and it's way too long to take the time to edit any mistakes. I apologize in advance for any gramatical frustrations acquired while reading this article. With that said... I think milwaukee has a very underrated dining scene that should be explored by all. Check these places out for yourself and let me know what you think.

My annual Blog xmas list

ok here we go.

1) Windows laptop. Still don't have one of these, eventhough I could easily afford to pick one up. I just never do. It'd be nice to have one though, not being able to watch tv and sit on the computer at the same time is horrible.

2) GPS. If you'd refer to blog posts from years past you'd see I was way above the trend on this one. I've been asking for one of these suckers since 1999. What's up with that? Seems like everyone else is getting these as gifts. I wonder why the one person who consistantly asks for one is kept out of the loop. Maybe it's because I suck.

3) Can't go wrong with more heartburn pills. Right now I'm really high on omaprozole or however you spell it. It's the generic prilosec. Good stuff.

4) Someone to tell me what the hell's causing this rash.

5) A big bucket of whey protein. I keep buying these protein drinks from the gym whenever I'm done working out and Katie keeps yelling at me for it. It'd be nice to have a big bucket of the stuff at home so I can become massive without the marital inconveniences.

6) Hair

7) Brewers tickets. I'm always available Sundays.

8) I'd really like a nice coat. Not a winter coat, more like a leather casual type coat. Katie says I'd look stupid in one of these but I know I'd look good. Could also use a new black fleece. Any brand will do.

9) Gift cards. Lets go with best buy, bed bath and beyond, kohls, wal mart, real chili, and nature outfitters.

10) Canned skyline chili. Katie found out she could pick up goldstar chili online for way cheaper than the skyline. The only problem is the canned goldstar chili doesn't really taste like the canned skyline. This really bothers me because real goldstar chili tastes exactly like real skyline chili. Goldstar... what's up with that?

11) $$$

12) Shot-gun case and other useful hunting supplies -- bullets, gun cleaning kit, a deer.

13) A smaller, classier cd player. Katie hates my circa 1996 cd changer.

14) A house

15) Finally, a fat head of me eating a chili dog.

Ok that's all I can think of for now. In other news, I thought of other fads that have come and gone in my lifetime.
-Remember the NO FEAR! T-shirts? Those were awesome. Those and the ones that were like, "(insert sport here) is life, the rest is just details!" Way too many people had those shirts.
-Poker... I think people have really started to quit caring about this incredibly boring game. I'm guilty for jumping into this one unfortunatly.

How about some sports talk?! Or not. Rock on!

Trends

I was bored and started thinking about inexplicable trends that happened in my life time and I how happy I am that they are over... or at least fading. So here are some.

1. Guys in Pink shirts. Remember when this was big? I think it was summer 2005 or some time like that. Why did this happen? Why did it become so popular? Who started this? I am proud to say that I have never ever owned a pink shirt. I don't know what's worse though. This or the popped collar faux hawk thing. Or is that finally going away too?

2. SUVs. I think people are buying less of these. Seeing how everyone who makes them is going out of business. No one could of seen that one coming.

3. Pop-punk. Ok so it still exists, but at least a majority of people just laugh at it now. I just heard a song that was something like Good Charlotte featuring Akon while I was playing madden the other day. What the hell is that? Good bye Blink 182, bye Good Charlotte... man I know so many more of these guys existed but I can't think of their names anymore. Oh wait, sum 41 and a simple plan. Thank god that stuff is gone.

4. Brett Favre. His story is just too cute for football. I like watching actual football right now. Not Brett Favre's incredible life journey.

5. MTV. Maybe it's just because I'm older and don't even know this channel exists anymore. Do young people still watch this stuff? Oh god, you know who does? katie. I come home from work and she's in the middle of a 7 hour paris hilton is my new BFF marathon. What the hell Katie.

I'm sure a bunch more will come to mind. If you guys can think of any let me know. The rules are inexplicable trends that have gone away within the past 8 years. Anyone think of anything?

I also have been to around 10 new Milwaukee restaurants in the past few months and plan to review a bunch because if there's one thing the milwaukee restaurant owners value... it is my opinion. Rock on. Oh and I'm hunting on saturday, I tell you how that goes too if you care.

Halloween... haloween? holloween?

That's Katie and I before starting our shift at work last friday. Went with the Revenge of the Nerds theme. Katie pretty much bought the skirt, glasses and pocket protector. That and a plain white sweater and a plain black sweater. Everything else she made at home. Pretty impressive huh? I unfortunately think I pulled off the nerd thing a little too well. We had a good time that night. Got out of work kinda late but we were still able to make it to oak creek for daly's mega haloween blowout. Except the blowout portion was over and everyone was heading to one of the best bars oak creek has to offer... which unfortunately was a terrible bar. I forget what it was called, something like big mouth frog's. I was DD in a car that just blew a head light so I had to play it safe for the night but good times were had by all.
Packers just lost a tight one in overtime to one of the "better" teams in the nfl. Should have won. Didn't seem like they were trying too hard. I hate the nfl's overtime system too. It is far too easy to win if you get that coin toss. The odds are horribly in your favor as a result of dumb luck. The college system sucks too. I know in america we can't have ties. Someone has to win but more importantly we need a loser. But in regular season games, what is wrong with a tie. They happen in all international sports, what's the big deal? Anyone who says they'd rather lose than tie is a loser. Anyone really have a problem with ties? Let me know. Maybe someone could post a thought on this thing for once.
Election day is on tuesday, get out and vote. Maybe more than half this country will show up for this one. Go brewers!

Ken Macha

Apparently the brewers are going to name this guy our next manager. Any thoughts? From what I hear he led the A's to a few playoff seasons but the players ended up turning against him and he was fired. We'll see what happense here I guess. In other news, the brewers are reportedly offering 4 years, 100 million to CC Sabathia. I don't think that's enough. I think that's one of those offers where the brewers can so, oh well we tried, there's nothing we could do. Someone out there is going to break the bank on this guy. If he was gonna take less to play in a city he likes he would of signed last year with Cleveland. I've also read Mike Maddux is probably going to Texas. Kind of indifferent on this one seeing how the Brewer pitching has been average to terrible over the past couple seasons. I bet we trade Prince before this year is up. We'll see, GO BREWERS! ..............laziest photo shop ever!

Old House, Business Dinners, oil, and Steve Martin?

The house my family grew up in is for sale at 279,900. I'd love to buy it if I could. Check it out.
http://www.shorewest.com/vp/ListingServlet?cd_MLS=1153972&SITE=SHOREW&ScreenID=LISTING_DETAIL_P&mapvars=minx%3D-87.90729060450249%26miny%3D43.09771576936951%26maxx%3D-87.8984722861225%26maxy%3D43.105141721689506%26lp_low%3D0%26lp_high%3D99999999%26beds_low%3D0%26baths_low%3D0%26p_type%3D%26wf%3D%26zoom%3Dtrue%26scale%3D9%26s_layer%3D1153972


I'm starting to get really sick of the damn corporate credit cards. There has to be another way for businesses to save money besides shorting servers on tips. These people disgust me. Had to deal with a 10% tip on a $220 last night... Another one of these, oh it's cool guys, I'll just run it on my corporate card moments. Followed by, oh man, my boss is gonna be really angry we spent this much on dinner tonight... No way I can add a tip to this. These businesses have more money than god for christs sake. Wasn't I told that if we give these guys tax breaks the extra money will "trickle down" to the rest of us? That theory works if you don't take into consideration the fact that greed exists. In order for that wealth to be passed down to the other classes the people who possess said wealth have to be willing to dispense it. So I'm all for taxing these people. If they won't use it for the right purposes themselves it looks like someone has to force it upon them. You had your 8 years, you F'd it up.


In other news, I am so sick of this "drill baby drill" stuff. Apparently our only solution to getting off foreign oil is to drill for it here. I think people should be shouting "invent baby invent." To me the fact that we use oil in this day in age at all is the problem, not where it comes from. In the 90s, the economy soared as a result of the internet boom. You'd have to believe the next big thing is going to be green energy/resources. The first nation to discover a universal green energy will cash in big time. Holding onto domestic oil reserves only slows progress. We should be learning our lesson already. At a time where foreign car markets were cashing in on small energy efficient models, we're pumping out suburbans, explorers, expeditions, and trucks. Our car manufacturers are on the verge of bankruptcy while the Japanese are cashing in. Energy efficient products are what sells. We should be focused on creating those here. There's a bunch more I'd like to write about this but in order to do so I'd pretty much have to create a research paper like I used to do in college. I'm done with school, no need for that.


I just caught Steve Martin on the Daily Show yesterday. The guy hasn't aged in 30 years. I guess the only problem with that is 30 years ago he looked like a 60 year old man. It just kind of freaked me out a bit. That's all.

Sveum got Yosted

Brewers extended the contract of Doug Melvin yesterday. His first decision was to get Sveum out of town. Kind of feel bad for the guy. I don't really see any reason why we wouldn't retain him. They say Melvin wants a more experienced playoff ready manager I guess. I personally think experience is the most overrated stat in sports. I hate it. I was about to start listing reasons why but I thought of way too many examples and don't want to take the time to write them down. I can see the argument for a change just for change sake. I'd like to shake something up this off season, the end of the past two has been too similar. Hopefully we bring in a new manager who can fix all that.

I hate saturdays. Mainly because I have to work every Saturday and I can't stand college football. I also ate a can of chef boyardee right before bed last night. Literally like 5 minutes before falling asleep. Terrible idea. I didn't know food can give you a hangover. I'm gonna go kill some zombie bug type creatures in Gears of War! Wish me luck.

Zombie Sports... WORST TIP EVER!

I have completed my mourning over the end of the brewers season. ESPN has once again become a part of my life. I'm able to read my websites again without falling into fits of anger and depression. A couple things are keeping me going -- The Packers beat a pathetic Seahawks team, and my fantasy football roster is a Tight End short of absolute perfection. Who was smart enough to predict Aaron Rodger's incredible fantasy start to this season? I think I got the guy in the 4th or 5th round. Way to see that one you losers. Just added Chad Johnson to my team. I know the Bengals suck but come on, he's got to be worth one good game. He'll break 100 yards with a td against pittsburgh this weekend, you heard it here first.

Enough Sports. Last night -- Tuesday, October 14th -- I received the WORST TIP EVER. It was so bad it didn't even result in anger. Just confusion. I'm under the impression that it was a business dinner. One of those take out the new client deals. I usually hate these things because from what I gather, I think businesses require their employees to leave no more than a 15% tip on their corporate accounts. So, they already started with a round of drinks from the bar. I usually hate that because that takes around 30-40 bucks off my tab. This table was different though. They sit down and order one of our $80 bottles of wine. Then they start with the app. special that was running for $18 bucks that night. They follow that up with 4 salads, 4 major entrees, 4 desserts, a coffee, oh, and another bottle of wine. Except the next bottle of wine ran for $90. I'm excitied at this point. I just grabbed a table of four and put their total over $365. To gain some perspective here, anything about $200 on a table of four is considered fantastic.... So, I drop off the check and then I see the dreaded American Express Gold BUSINESS card. I reassured myself by thinking, it's cool, 15% of $365 is $54.75. That's still plenty for just one table. Well, I run the card, drop it off... They continue to hang out and talk for the next 20 minutes or so and then I see they're finally gone. I run grab the book to see what I made and then it happened... The worst tip ever -- $6.00. I kid you not, they left me SIX dollars. First reaction = This can't be right, someone must of left some cash on the table... Nope. Second reaction = Maybe he just added wrong... Nope. This guy wrote 6 bucks in the tip line and adjusted the total to correspond. Nothing went wrong at this table. A glass of water was never empty, a wine glass was never half gone. All dishes and silverware were polished. They raved about the food. This guy is just the biggest asshole of all time. Oh by the way, I got this guy's name off the card... I also have his phone number from the reservation. I'm hoping by some miracle the loser calls and attempts to correct this. Otherwise we'll see what kind of sick maniacal scheme I can come up with. Remember what happened to that guy who had my car towed in Iowa city? Well if you don't, there's a reason I didn't tell you. I don't take this kind of thing lightly. When I closed the check I didn't even take the six bucks he left on there because I considered it an insult. Well, I've got to head to work in an hour. Lets hope this problem fixed itself overnight.

Sports... R.I.P.

Well the best brewers season that I've ever witnessed has come to a close over the past week. The Packers defense is unwatchable... so I don't watch them. The Cubs did their usual three and out playoff appearance which is awesome... but now I don't even have anyone to chear against. What do I do with all this newfound free time?

1) I could start caring about politics more? With the absense of sports television I have resorted to comic punditry. One thing that pisses me off is the daily show and colbert report aren't recorded live. I want to watch their reactions to the debates right after the debates but they got nothing. Speaking of the debates... what is the purpose of the third debate. I've heard all their speaches. They repeated them in their first debate. Then they repeated their first debate in the second debate. Why will the third debate be any different? Oh, and how stupid are these town hall debates. They try to create the illusion that it's every Americans asking everyday questions... that they submit in writing to Tom Brokaw. He then in turn picks the same 30 questions that I've heard answers to already. Oh and another thing, what is with undecided voters. You are retarded. If you can't choose by now, don't vote. You're an idiot.
2) We could continue this house hunting thing. Oh wait, everything in America sucks right now, deaming this to be too difficult.
3) I could venture back into academia. Maybe pick up another degree that I'll do nothing with. I would like to attempt a culinary program. I'll look into that... Actually that's something I may be able to use.
4) I could go to bars and whine about work! Actually I've always done that. But I used to be able to whine about sports and work. Now I can only whine about work.

Well that's pretty much all I can think of. Oh, also, to add insult to my boredom. My Xbox drive went mental and started scratching up my games. So I had to ship that to Texas for repairs. Since I'm a month out of warranty, I owe a hundred bucks for repairs. If I ever want to play tiger woods again I'm gonna have to rebuy the game. I just can't justify rebuying a game. But I loved that game. I just don't know what to do. I got Greg and Joe saying I have to buy this hockey game now. I never cared about hockey. Their argument is that this video game will make me care about hockey. That logic does make sense seeing how I could careless about golf but I love playing the video game.

Well, I got to go pick my car up from the shop soon. Good bye 500 more dollars. Wisconsin sucks, oh, and here comes winter. god.

House hunting

Katie and I are doing a little house hunting in Caledonia, WI. Some "town" just north of Racine. It's a bit of a commute from Milwaukee but not that bad. The area has some pretty nice houses for a decent price. We have appointments with 6 different realtors at 6 different properties today -- making this the first sunday in I don't know how long where I've skipped a packer game. We'll be bringing our camera of course and if there's anything I like I'll post some pictures up here.
Now lets hope the Brewers win this one today! It will ensure us an awesome 3 game sweep in the playoffs. If we win and the mets win, does that mean we have to throw Suppan against them in a one game playoff? That would be awesome!
Packers are playing the Bucs. I've never been less interested in a Packer game. I hope they win though. Otherwise this could go down as one of the worst sports weekends in WI history -- Brewers get tossed out of the playoffs, Badgers get beat by Michigan, and the Packers lose their second straight.
http://www.theonion.com/content/point/point_counterpoint_gov_palin_has

Again. . .

Look what Katie did to me again.

http://katieinmilwaukee.blogspot.com/2008/09/dans-old-yearbook-pictures.html

http://katieinmilwaukee.blogspot.com/2008/09/one-more.html

Brewers season is far from over...

So lets start talking about that.

CC Sabathia is inhuman. 107 pitches. 11Ks. 1 ER. Second consecutive start on short rest. Unbelievable. In his short tenure as a brewer he has already become the greatest Brewers pitcher of all time. I have never seen a pitcher try to pick up a team like this guy is. No one does this. Word is Sabathia's agent is complaining to the brewers because we're over pitching the guy. Sabathia told the agent to back off. He is doing everything he can to get us into the postseason.

Then we got the Sveum! or however the heck you spell it. Brewers are looking like a different team out there. I saw nine walks, a couple bunts, and 0HRs. That's how you win baseball games. 4 runs on 2 hits... Awesome. I love the new lineup, especially Hardy in the 5 spot. The sad thing is, this is the type of lineup fans have been screaming for during the entire yost regime. It just seemed like common sense. Hopefully they can grab a win tonight. Looks like the Mets are gonna get rained out so if we win, we got the wild card lead by a half game. Go brewers, lets get some runs.

Now I'm going to continue my house hunting.

Brewers season is over

no more speaking about that.

Work was incredibly busy last night. Happy hour was booked, and the dining room was full until 10. Good night for everyone. I looked at the reservations for tonight and we have a full restaurant from 5-6:30 then absolutely nothing after that. Is there something going on that I'm not aware of tonight? Why does everyone have to be somewhere by 7?

In other news, Katie and I are thinking about looking for a house. This is gonna be incredibly difficult because I'm pretty sure neither of us are going to agree on anything. After seachring realtor.com I found some pretty cool ones up in the north suburbs that are decently priced. Some of them have enormous yards. The taxes up here are a joke though. That alone is making me consider a house in the city but I really don't think I can give up a yard. Living here is nice but I hate having to be considerate towards other people. I want to blast my stereo, scream obscenities at the brewers, and have people over on a school night without having to worry about upsetting the neighbors.
I have an idea -- I'm gonna post a list of things I'd look for in an ideal house.

1) A finished basement. This one is key because I've already been given verbal confirmation that if I get a basement, I'm allowed to decorate it however I want. Seeing how I couldn't do this to any other room in a house, I really want a basement. Hell, I'd even throw a bar and a tv next to the laundry machine.
2) A decent yard/deck. If I could grill out for every meal I would. I just got this weber grill off my wedding registry (thanks to the Rivases) and I'd love to be able to just keep it outside. Here I have to move in and out of the house because it'd literally take up half the back yard.
3) A kitchen with a lot of cabinets. We are loaded with kitchen appliances and dishes after the wedding. We have nowhere left to put it. I would definetly like a bigger kitchen.
4) A secret underground room that can be accessed from a backyard shed or garage. I would equip this room with security cameras that give me pictures of every room in the house. Then I'd require a mini fridge, a couple recliners, a tv, and an internet connection. Maybe a storage area where I could keep things like, ibuprofen, charcoal, extra milk and beer... just random things that I'd normally be sent to the store for. That would allow me to be like, "ok Katie, I'll go get that from the store... I'll be right back." Yet in reality I'd just go to my secret room and figure out my fantasy sports roster and read a few packer articles.

That is all I want, is it too much to ask?

SPORTS!

So the Brewers are collapsing and the Packers are 2-0... must be September. I don't know what I'd do if it weren't for the Green Bay Packers. Year after year they save me from baseball. I don't even know why I watch the first 5 months of the season. None of that mattered at all. Just horrible.
Packers are playing the cowboys this week. Their offense looked ridiculously good last week against Philly. I'm not looking forward to playing this one. Atari Bigby is not gonna be playing. This big news after watching Rouse's pathetic performance against Detroit. Both of Detroit's 4th quarter TDs could of been stopped with smart safety play. These are Dan's keys to the game!

1) Jam Jason Witten. You can't let this Tight end break free on his routes. He's Romo's favorite target and from what I remember last year, our LBs have a lot of trouble covering good tight ends.
2) Al Harris can not cover tall, strong receivers in man coverage. Just ask TO. He has flat out OWNED Harris in the past few match ups. Remember Plaxico Burress in the NFC championship game? We're gonna need to put two men on him from the start of the game. Woodson can handle Crayton.
3) Trust in Aaron Rodgers. He played great against Dallas last year. Unfortunatly we had to watch number 4 suck it up for the first half and ruin our chances of winning. Is it just me or do I feel way more comfortable watching Rodgers instead of Favre. I don't find myself worrying about that spazoid INT everytime Rodgers drops back to pass. It's nice.
4) We got to hope our front four can get pressure on Romo. This would be ideal because once we're forced to blitz it will free up Witten in the passing game. Philly did their crazy blitzes all game and it really didn't seem help.
5) I've played this game in madden at least 4 times. I've noticed that Dallas' defensive speed is incredible. If you're gonna run you got to run right at em. There's no chance of turning the corner on an outside toss. They like to play a lot of man coverage with two safeties over the top. This severely limits the chance of the deep play so we're gonna have to do a lot of short mid field routes. Look for the tightends to have big yards this game. If Romo isn't pressured, he will complete a 12 yard pass and Marion Barber is a fricken horse. Takes five guys to bring him down.
That's my game plan against the Dallas Cowboys. I'm pathetic.

My one political post.

I found this in the "Savage Love" column in the back of The Onion the other day. Has some rough language so if that offends you don't read this.

"The 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice-presidential nominee, is pregnant. The news was released by the McCain campaign during a busy news week—a major hurricane, the Republican National Convention, Dick Cheney getting us into a war with Russia—so it may not have received the coverage it deserved. So allow me to bring you up to date, gentle readers…
Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin got her ass knocked up five or so months ago by 18-year-old Levi Johnston. Among the hobbies listed on Levi's since-yanked MySpace page—"fishing, shoot some shit, and just fuckin' chillin'"—was this revealing tidbit: "I don't want kids." But Bristol, says her mom, "made the decision on her own to keep the baby," and is now engaged to Levi "Shootin' Shit" Johnston.
As the adoptive parent of a child born to a pair of unwed teenagers, I'm certainly not in favor of abortion in all circumstances. But I believe that it's a choice teenagers should be able to make for themselves—with input from their families whenever possible—and, so it seems, does the GOP's VP nominee. Sarah Palin is pleased that her daughter made the decision—on her own—to keep the baby.
But Sarah Palin doesn't believe that other girls should be able to make their own decisions. Sarah Palin believes abortion should be illegal in almost every instance—including rape and incest. So Bristol Palin is being celebrated for making a choice that Sarah Palin would like to take away from all other American women. Apparently, today's GOP believes that choice is a special right reserved for the wayward daughters of Republican elected officials.
Oh, and Sarah Palin also believes that birth control shouldn't be made available to teenagers, she opposes medically accurate sex education, and she backs abstinence-until-marriage sex "education."
Sigh.
The GOP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence "education" programs during the Bush years. I believe this enormous investment of public funds raises the obvious question: Is our children abstaining? Sarah Palin's aren't. Despite this massive outlay on the part of the American taxpayer and the example set by her Christian parents, Bristol Palin became sexually active while still in high school. Excuse me, but if abstinence education can't keep the daughter of the evangelical governor of Alaska off the cock, what hope is there for the daughters—and some of the sons—of average Americans?
I'm a cad for even writing this, of course, because shortly before Bristol and Levi were paraded before cheering throngs at the Republican National Convention, the Palins asked the media to respect their daughter's privacy.
Another special right: When it comes to respecting your family's privacy, Palin and the GOP see no need. They want to micromanage the most intimate aspects of your private life. And if their own kids fail to live up to the standards that Palin and the GOP seek to impose on your family, well, that's a private matter between the Palins, their daughter, their God, and the thousands of screaming imbeciles in elephant hats waving McCain/Palin signs on the floor of the Republican National Convention."

All I have to say is how come I never heard of Shootin' shit Johnston until I read the article written by the onion's sex columninst? I blame the liberal media.

I have returned.

Sorry about the lack of posting. I have been busy getting married. Waiting for some pictures to come back but things couldn't have gone better. It looked like everyone had fun and the ceremony was better than I expected. Katie and I have been hanging out in Door County pretty much doing nothing for the past couple days... it's nice. Now on to more interesting topics.

The Green Bay Packers. What a start. Number 12 couldn't have looked much better. That td pass that hit the fullback of all players was ridiculous. We had the vikings coming to town with that pathetic qb of theirs. Seriously. Why was I told Tavaris Jackson was gonna be good this year? The guy has been a joke in every game I've seen. Every brilliant nfl analyst was giving the brilliant scoop that Jackson "got smarter" over the off season and that is going to change everything! How's that make sense? Who was the one who discovered this newfound intelligence? Why did so many people listen to that guy? Just makes no sense to me. Oh then there's that amazing Vikings D-line. They were incredible -- 0 sacks, grant goes for 95 yards. You'd think the Vikings might of checked out the tape of the Packers vs. Chiefs game last year. You know, the game where Chad Clifton made Jared Allen obsolete. Maybe they should of considered that before offering up those draft picks and that cash. He was useless. On another note, anyone know this guy owns a restaurant in kansas city called, "wine, dine, 69 em." Also has a few DUIs on his rap sheet. This guy's a real winner.
Brewers... man, the brewers. What the hell is going on? Am I going to have to use the packers to once again help me forget about the pathetic milwaukee brewers? Why can't we win a damn game in september? Our offense is an absolute joke right now. Prince Fielder is useless... As I predicted at the beginning of the year. Way to whine about not getting paid and how cows are people too. You really backed that talk up. Enjoy your mediocre arbitration. I hope you're still tradable in the next few years. His drop off this year is horrible. Imagine how many more games we'd win if he hit 22 more hrs like he did last year. Maybe he can hit that magic number of 30. It's hard to find a fat .240 30 HR hitter in baseball nowadays. Brewers need to fix this now. I can't stand it.
With all that said, getting married has been the best decision I've ever made. I couldn't be happier. Life is too fun right now. It's now time to settle down and get down to business. We're gonna head back to work on thursday and continue making enough to get by but we're gonna start looking forward soon. Maybe after the honeymoon. What's the rush? GO PACKERS BREWERS AND DAN'S MARRIAGE! Thanks to everyone for showing up and having a blast. Now it's your turn.

Look what Katie did to me again

Click on this link, turn up the volume, and hit the play button on the left.

http://mlb.xm.varitalk.com/bobble/index.php?i=dT0yMyZnPW0maT1ib2JibGVfRkFFODgyQzVDOEE4OUU4Njg1NkNFMTU0OUFFQjc4MzMuSlBHJml4PTMmaXk9LTE2JmlyPTEwJmlzPTExMC45MTY1NTc3OTk2ODYmaXQ9MjAuNzAzMTI1JmE9MyZ3PW1zJms9RkFFODgyQzVDOEE4OUU4Njg1NkNFMTU0OUFFQjc4MzMuSlBH

Other thoughts...

A few things Katie and I did over the past couple days.



1) Ate at Roots Cellar over on Brewer's Hill. They have a patio there with an amazing view of downtown milwaukee. They're one of those restaurants who claim to be a "slow food" restaurant. What's that mean? Well their theory is people in this country are too rushed when they go out to eat. They should take time to relax and enjoy each other's company. Maybe strike up an interesting conversation or two while they slowly course your meals... That's their philosophy. I think it means that their kitchen is slow but we'll act like we're doing this as a favor to you. Maybe I'm wrong but who knows. Food was good, not amazing, but good. Their beer, wine, and innovative cocktail list was impressive. The server was very nice and attentive... only problem was things went very slow. But that's intentional I'm told. Overall I recommend it to everyone who has over 2 hours to go out to eat. That patio alone makes it worth while.

2) Katie and I bartended together last night. Our main bartender had to work a private party so it was up to Katie and I to save the day. No one sat at the bar till 10:00. Somehow we made good money off it. Crazy.

3) My real chili consumption has reached shocking levels.

4) I only watch baseball or baseball related programming on tv. That and the 55 friends episodes that Katie DVRs. Everytime I see Brett Favre coverage on TV I change the channel. I just don't care. I don't know why, but I don't. In my mind Brett Favre retired 4 months ago. I'll care about Packer football when the regular season starts. Right now it's baseball season.

5) Anyone know what the word escrow means? I heard someone use that in a joke on friends and everyone laughed. Then I thought to myself great, I have no idea what that means but now I'm gonna hear that word 20 times in the next week and it's just gonna piss me off. Sure enough, it's happening. I'm gonna get to the bottom of this now. (in escrow - in the keeping of a third person for delivery to a given party upon the fulfillment of some condition.) Oh I get it. Joey said, "I looked for your new house and Escrow wasn't even on the map!" HA, it's not in a town called escrow joey, that's just a realtor term. Oh those friends.

6) My brother and his girlfriend Megan jumped out of an airplane and lived to tell about it.... thus inspiring me to want to jump out of an airplane and live to tell about it.

7) Brewers won 4 straight, Braun has back problems. Go brewers! I'll be at the game tomorrow. Katie and I are taking my cousin Clare McNamara. Story goes like this. I was fishing with her up in Canada and we were getting towards the end of our trip. I already caught one Trophy northern and Clare really wanted one for herself. So I made her a deal. I said well if I hook one Clare, I'll have you reel her in. Well I hooked one. The fish was putting up a fight and I was afraid if I tried to pass off my pole I'd lose it. So I took that guy for myself causing my cousin to hate me. So I said I'd take her to a Brewer game to make up for it. A year and several reminders later I am holding up to my promise. Here's the fish!

Brewer Block Party.

Katie and I went to that Brewer block party thing in whitefish bay with hopes in getting a few autographs from players such as corey hart, ryan braun, salomon torres, david riske, and craig counsell. Unfortunately the lines for all these guys were ungodly long and we got their too late. So I took the opportunity to hop in ted simmons' short line and add him to my brewer legend ball that my dad started up for me. Then Katie and I proceeded to awkwardly place ourselves next to players and take pictures. Enjoy.

wow

I watched almost every pitch of that series. I won't talk about it. Still 50 something games to go, thank god it's over.

In other hilarious news, Pinky's is pissed! Some how they found my blog about them. Then took the time to find out who I was and call me. The guy was furious. Don't remember the exact details but the call went something like this.

Pinky's: Is this Dan?

Dan: Yes it is...

Pinky's: This is (insert name) at Pinky's autobody. Why are you writing this stuff on the internet for everyone to see?

Dan: Um, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Pinky's: You have the website daninmilwaukee.blogspot.com?

Dan: Why yes I do!

Pinky's: ROAR, you're an asshole!

Dan: I'm free to write what I want as long as it's true and seriously dude, like 5 people read that blog. I can't believe you even found it.

Pinky's: ROAR!!! You can't come here ever again! click...

Dan: Whoa...

So I got that happening right now. I hope I don't get a brick through my window in the next couple days but if I do... we know who did it. I should probably try to keep a little more anonymous on this thing. I didn't know my opinions could make or break a collision repair shop. Pretty funny how the guy got so worked up over it though.

Getting married in a little over a month. Those of you who haven't sent back rsvps... maybe you could get on that soon? Tuxes... You guys were all informed that tuxes have to be fitted by August 1st. I hope that's done. That's it for now. Go brewers?

Your First Place Milwaukee Brewers!

Well that didn't take long did it? In just 9 games after the all-star break, the brewers have caught the cubs. I don't know what made me happier -- that brewer win or that cub loss. Lets start with the win.
Brewers starter Dave Bush takes the mound after a good months rest and is a little rusty. (I absolutely hate this home/away platoon) The Astros have a good lineup so they put a couple runs on us. Then Braun strikes again with a two run game tying blast to straight center. Brewers tack on a couple more runs and just like that, we get a peice of first place. Exciting, yet expected win. Now lets turn our attention to that Cubs loss.
The Cubs Start with their answer to CC Sabathia -- Rich Harden -- The glass armed, winless, ace. I mean the guy is good, it's a shame they could only use him for 5 innings. He tossed 10 Ks in 5. That's incredible. But in an attempt to save his arm for fall baseball, he was lifted after 87 pitches. Then the overworked cubs bullpenn is forced to work 7 more innings and lose. The cubs lineup was only able to put up 2 runs in 12 innings. Pathetic. They have no excuses for this one either. The only impact player who's still hurt for them is Kerry Wood. Seeing how they never had the lead in the late innings, he wouldn't of been needed. They just flat out sucked.
So the question remains, what excites me more -- a brewer victory or a cubs loss? Well it has to be the Cubs loss.
I guess I'm just a cynical prick who enjoys the misfortunes of others. But come on cub fans, you are horrible people.... Case in point - I decided to check out the Chicago sun times website and read the city's view on the cubs woes. What do I find? A brief game recap story and a poll on the bottom. The poll's subject? Who has hotter fans, the cubs or white sox. What the hell is that? Then I read further and we get the HOT FAN CONTEST!!!! This bubbly pop culture "cubbie blue" trash is infuriating. I swear to god 90% of their fans know nothing about baseball. It's just so CUTE to love the CUBBIES. They just blow an 8.5 game lead to the brewers and we're browsing the internet debating if Stacy is hotter than "Southside Lisa." They don't deserve happiness.
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/983402,hotfans060308.article

Ok, I got to take a minute and cool down. Kind of freaked out. With all that said, we got a crucial series coming up. The FIBs are coming north to annoy the hell out of me for a week. The Cubs are good and their bats are too cold for comfort. They're gonna bust out of this slump big time. I just hope it's not in milwaukee. Remember that time they beat us 19-5? That sucked. I hope nothing like that happens again. Go brewers, lets win some games.

HYPE!!

I have been holding back on my complete brewer freak out but I don't feel I can contain myself anymore... maybe I should wait until after this final game against the cardinals? I mean I did just text Ben about Sabathia's no hitter just one batter before it was derailed last night. It made me wonder... Do I hold some mystical power? Is the sporting world controlled by the emotions of one man in Milwaukee? If this post leads to the depressing collapse of what could be a monumental brewer season I apologize. I will know longer express excitement over any local sporting event again.

With that said, this has to be the most fun I've ever had in sports. The Brewers are just one game out of first place and two games up in the wild card standings. Since the all star break the brewers have won 6 in a row, all on the road. We already took 3-4 from St. Louis. I was hoping for a split in that series.

I find myself being a different fan. Take the first two games in St Louis for example. In both games the brewers give up 2 runs in the first. Resulting from a lifetime of brewer futility, I'm conditioned to think the game is now over. McClung sucks, Suppan sucks, Gagne sucks, Mota sucks, Hall sucks, Yost sucks... You know, the usual brewer thoughts but then... McClung and Suppan toss out a couple quality starts, Mota and Gagne keep us in the games, Bill Hall pops two game winning HRs, and Yost is the guy who decided to put these guys in the game. Things just aren't supposed to work that way here.

Then there's this Sabathia guy... my god. Pujols final at bat in the 9th says it all. The guy barely has 30 Ks this year... one of the best hitters to play the game. He steps up in the 9th, seeing sabathia for the 4th time this game. What does he do? Some sort of falling over bat throwing K. Game over. That is dominance. 3 complete games in a row. Our bullpenn is feeling great. Oh, and now the cardinals get to face ben sheets tonight. AWESOME. BREWERS!!!!!!!!!!

Pessimistic thought --

LaRussa is a first class, drunk driving asshole. He isn't gonna like the fact that the brewers came into his house and took three straight. Get ready for the bean ball wars. If anyone remembers the brewers last year you'll know that we MUST NOT retaliate. Have prince take a couple in the back if he has to, we'll go home with the sweep and watch their playoff aspirations fade away. Last year we pegged Pujols in return, Yost went mental and the season fell apart. So please Yost, learn from your mistakes last year. Do not screw things up again... Then again, if we're down 7-1 in the 9th. Lets peg em. GO BREWERS!

Another Day After Conejitos Post

Katie and I made our return to Conejitos last night after a brief hiatus. Nothing really changed. Pedro still knew our order, they still had a stack of "the onion"(s) in the corner, and the tv was tuned in to telemundo. They were showing the Ms. Universe pagent on there and we actually paid way too much attention to it. Then I come to find out this morning that Ms. USA bit it on live tv. HOW DID I MISS THAT! I watched this thing for 2 hours and never saw it happen. I'm heartbroken. I got to try and find a clip of it some where online now. I'm sure it's hilarious.
In other Conejitos related news... the mornings after conejitos suck. Katie blames the cheap margaritas but I think it's because for some reason we always go out after splitting that half pitcher. We could go somewhere decent, but no, we decided to go to the worst hole in the wall, dirty, dive bar in Milwaukee -- "the gig." Our bridesmaid Ariel lives a block away from the place and we agreed to meet her there. I can't tell you why. The place is utterly depressing. You walk in and see the same 10 drunk guys I used to see 2 years ago. They got these couches that I'd never dare sit on sprawled out all over the place. Even the bathroom graffiti lacks in creativity. I'm sorry but "your mom sucks" just doesn't do it for me. Katie and i got a drink and played a couple rounds of darts. Then we left. I don't know the feeling but I'm pretty sure leaving the gig is just like leaving a strip club. You just hang your head in shame and hope no one sees what you just did.

Ok now some random updates/thoughts.

Before a Brewer game last week, Katie and I went out to eat at Maxie's Southern Comfort. Excellent restaurant just off the freeway a couple miles west of Miller Park. Katie got some monkfish thing and I got the shrimp n' grits. Both dishes were incredible. Katie is absolutely obsessed with the shrimp n' grits. They also do a happy hour where apps and some drinks are half off. This includes their raw oysters. Incredible deal. If anyone of you get the chance, you really should check it out. I saw the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal critic gave the place a decent review but I think it deserved a little more praise.

Brewers did the Sabathia trade and this city is flipping out. We're selling out Tuesday night games. A thursday day game drew over 30,000. I'm loving it. Anyone watch Sabathia knock one deep to right yesterday? Then he goes and strikes out the side in the 9th. It was intense, the stadium just exploded. It would of been nice to win a home series against the reds though... thanks grandma and grandpa.

The city is already acting like we're in the playoffs. I hope the Brewers can live up to this hype and get something going. Anything short of a playoff birth would be heartbreaking to this city.

Ben Sheets is starting the all-star game, braun is batting 7th, in front of the NL's 8 and 9 hitters, those crappy cubs. We got Braun going for the home run derby tonight at 7. Looks like I got to DVR this one seeing that I got to work tonight.

Ok now I got to find a clip of Ms. USA biting it. GO BREWERS!

Trade?

There has been a huge rumor going around Milwaukee involving the Brewers wanting to trade for reigning AL Cy Young winner CC Sabathia. According to jsonline, the brewers are willing to part with their number one minor league slugger -- Matt Laporta. If the deal goes through it will probably be a 3 month rental seeing that Sabathia is about to become a free agent who'd be worth way more than the brewers will ever be able to pay. So the debate in Milwaukee is, Is it worth giving up part of your future to make a run right now? Absolutely.

I've watched the Brewers my entire life and never once saw them in the playoffs. The only time I even had hope was last year, then we had to watch them slowly choke away a huge lead over the Cubs. Why not go for it this year? From what I understand, all the scouts in baseball think LaPorta is gonna be one hell of a hitter. With Prince Fielder holding back on contract negotiations one would think LaPorta would be an excellent replacement when the brewers are forced to let Prince go. Then again, with the way Prince is playing now he may want to reconsider that $60 million offer. LaPorta has 20 Hrs in 83 games with a .290 batting average. Since we was drafted out of college he's pretty much ready to jump up to the majors and make an instant impact. So that's what we risk giving up... what do we gain?

Think about this... if the brewers make the post season... Sheets, Sabathia, Parra, and Suppan. Now that is a force to be reckoned with. Two dominating fastballers in Sheets and Sabathia. Two starting lefties in Sabathia and Parra. One veteran with playoff and world series experience. Match that up with that power line up we get to watch every night and BAM! We have a real shot at this. St Louis and Chicago have got to be sweating. Now I'm going to return to Jsonline's brewer page and continue refreshing until I hear something new.

By the way, the journal sentinal brewers beat writer Tom Haudricourt is giving fans excellent coverage of this trade rumor. I've never seen anything like it. GO BREWERS!

OH, saw the Stone Temple Pilots last night. Awesome show. Good old fashioned rock concert. Definetly goes up there in my top 3 shows of all time. It's there with Sleater-Kinney at lollapalooza and the red hot chili peppers/foo fighter show from summerfest years past.

Favre?

There was a little Favre rumor going around yesterday. Apparently Favre was thinking about coming back this year. I don't even know what to think about this one. As higgins put it last night, it's like someone you know just died. After months of mourning you've finally accepted it and you're ready to move on. Then you find out they're still alive resulting in some sort of an emotional freak out.
Honestly, I'd be kind of upset if Favre comes back. I just completed an entire franchise on Madden with Aaron Rodgers as my QB. We won the superbowl. 19-0. Couldn't figure out how to go about retiring a player on your team in madden... so I traded Favre for Chad Johnson. That really helped... but if Favre comes back, that means I did this virtual experiment under false pretenses. Hours and hours of carefully conducted research will be tossed asside... considered meaningless. I'd be heartbroken. Then again, it'd be awesome to see one more year.

BREWERS! Big win last night. They came from behind to pull one out on the road. This win guarentees us at least a .500 three time zone road trip. Excellent news for a team that is notorious for their away game struggles. Weeks and Cameron were the clutch hitters in this one. Braun and Fielder didn't even get an at bat. We go against one of the NL's best today in Brandon Webb but Parra has proven he's a contender. If Parra can pull this one off he'll tie Sheets for the team lead in wins. Never saw that one coming. Kind of bummed this one starts at 2:40. Could of at least made it 2:00 so I could of caught a majority of the game before work.
Side note... the Cubs and Cardinals are about to start a series against each other in St. Louis. Only good things can happen with that. I'd love to see us having either the division lead or the wild card spot come All Star break. GO BREWERS!

How not to dine out

There are certain things that certain people do while dining out that really anger me. I am going to tell you them... if you are guilty of any of these behaviors well... you suck.

1) Don't ever ask to be seated, then order a drink, then tell me -- "We'd just like to enjoy our cocktails for a minute before ordering." I HATE THIS! It ruins things on so many levels.
First off, how long would you like to enjoy this cocktail? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? an hour? I have no idea. I guess I have no choice but to come up to your table 15 times and ask if you're ready to order. Then when you decide to order guess what... I just got sat another three tables. I'm not getting to you for 15 minutes. Deal with it. Also, see those people standing by the door waiting for a table? Don't mind them. Sit. Enjoy your cocktail.
Most restaurants have places called bars. This is the perfect setting for you and your little drink. Sit there for 30 minutes before bothering me.

2) Don't ask me where the fish is from and act like you care. "Is your grouper fresh? really? where's it from?" Come on lady, it's fish. Will you still order this no matter what I tell you? To be honest, I have no idea where fish is from. I entertain myself by naming random countries and watching their reactions. Salmon is from norway huh? oh they got great salmon! Actually you just ate some farm raised crap from Arkansas. Still tasted like salmon didn't it. I used to get this one at the summertime a lot. I once told someone we got our grouper from North Korea. It didn't strike them as odd. Apparently we trade with North Korea now.

3) If I'm going to take your order, I may have to interrupt you. Countless times I've walked up to tables while they're talking about something or other. Where I work they're ALWAYS talking Obama and Clinton. Every table I go to, that is the conversation... ok anyways, stop talking when I get there. I can't stand walking up to a table and trying to talk while no one acts like I exist. Sometimes I get the, "excuse me, can't you see that we're talking here?" What am I supposed to do? Walk around the restaurant for 10 minutes, staring at your table, looking for that 1/2 second window where your conversation ends? We got a little social contract here. I walk up, you stop talking, you listen to what I have to say, you tell me what you want to eat, then you continue talking. I am not waiting on you according to your time line. You eat according to mine. End of story.

4) If the restaurant closes at 10:00. Don't sit down to eat at 10:00. I was two minutes away from going home and now I got to sit here for another hour and half. Oh and if you're the last table in the restaurant. Don't sit and enjoy your coffee and conversation for 2 hours. There are 5 people in this restaurant who absolutely hate you right now. How can you not feel awkward sitting in an empty restaurant, 2 hours after closing, and watching the staff just sitting in a corner staring at you and waiting for your disrespectful ass to get out? Very rude.

5) There are 5 ways to order a steak. Rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, well. Use these words, they're there for your convenience. Don't say this -- "I'd like just a little pink in in the center but not red and don't cook it through." And by the way, if you ever order a steak above medium, expect to delay your entire table from enjoying dinner. Plus, it will taste like leather. Don't eat steak if you can't have pink in it. Everyone will tell you it is wrong.

6) If the restaurant doesn't offer you something that you want, it's not my fault. I mainly deal with this one with the cappucino and espresso people. We don't have one of those machines where I work. I can't stand it when people look at me like I'm a retard when I tell them we don't do that. Sorry. Nothing I can do for you at this point. Even if we did have one of those machines, it is such a pain to hear that ordered, then take 10 minutes of my time to froth some skim milk for your low fat latte, and get way behind on my schedule for the rest of my tables.

7) Read the menu, it's there for one reason only. Don't ask me what dressing comes on a salad or what sides come with your fish. It's all written down on that little booklet you're holding... Use it.

I could go on forever with this one but I'm just gonna stop now. I'm getting too angry. If you're guilty of any of these things please stop. You're being a jerk. That's it for now. GO BREWERS!

This explains everything...

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=763767

Apparently Prince owes a ton of money to the IRS. This explains everything...

1) Prince switched to his vegetarian diet not by choice, but by necessity. In troubling times like these the easy mac and ramen diet is the only solution.

2) Prince absolutely despises his gambling addict father... I wonder why?

3) Prince whined about how much he was getting paid this year and then goes ahead and turns down a $60 million offer. Actually this one can't be explained. He could of used some of that. They also said Hart turned down an offer. That is sad news. Are we destined to lose all these guys except Braun?

More Brewers stuff. Brewers just won two, cubs just lost two. Things are looking "OK." We still need to go on a tear. We got Dave Bush going tonight. That's not so good. Ryan Braun is starting to really turn it on. If he continues this he may toss his name into the MVP discussion. Especially if he can help put these guys into the playoffs. How about Russ Branyan. The guy has something like 18 hits and 9 HRS. Half the time he hits one it's out of the park. Not just out of the park... just absolutely smashed out of there. He's been hitting with incredible power all year although half of the time he was in the minors. I know he can get hit by the strike out bug every now and then but right now he's fun to watch... right Bill Hall? As for everyone who says Yost should be fired I ask you who is going to replace him. Yost made a great decision last night by pulling Mota in the 9th and allowing Torres to get the two inning save. No one is going to comment on this. Last year he really freaked out as the season was coming to a close but there is nothing wrong with his managing style this year. Look at the pitchers he has to work with.

Ok, now wedding stuff. INVITATIONS ARE OUT! Photographer is booked... or will be at 2:00 this afternoon. We're in contact with the DJ we think we're gonna choose. This weekend we're hoping to head to door county and get this cake thing figured out. After that it's time to focus on the little things... and there are a lot of little things. Send me those RSVP cards. If you're in the wedding party Katie and I would like to organize some sort of bbq/or maybe even tailgate where we could all hang out. I'll keep you posted. Go BREWERS!

Inventions!

Ever since I came up for the idea for the detatchable plates foreman grill before it was actually built I figured I would post my most recent invention ideas so I can have documented proof that says I thought of that first.

1) A dual climate control bed. I'd call it the heat number bed. See Katie sleeps with it all warm but I can't stand being hot when i sleep. This dilemma results in many fan-speed related arguments. If someone could come up with a thermostat controlled bed spread they could make millions. I know there are electric blankets out there but those don't solve my problem. I need a cooling blanket. Actually half of a cooling blanket. I'd be amazed if someone didn't already try to build this thing.

2) The double screw top nalgene bottle. Anyone familiar with these know that there are two types of lids for these things. One is a big lid, that makes it easy for cleaning and pouring, yet difficult for drinking. The second is a small water bottle like top that makes it easy to drink but hard to pour. So if they could make a lid that screws off on the bottom, yet attatch the small drinking lid on top... You have the perfect waterbottle.

3) Carbonated milk... actually I didn't come up with this one but Daly and Suesskind are still working out the kinks of this tasty beverage.

4) Some sort of weather prediction machine that through radio waves could read wind speeds, temperatures, and precipitation levels. I would call this machine the doplar radar.

5) This final one isn't really an invention... just an amazing idea. You know those machines in the drive-thru bank tellers. The vaccum tube thing. Well I want a series of those things to be spread throughout my house on some incredible remote controlled computer network. I could have one go from my refrigerator to my recliner... then from the recliner to the garbage can. Oh man, maybe I could even network the microwave into this. The possibilities are endless.

So those are my inventions. Let me know if you can build any of that for me.

Ok, that was the loudest thunder I have ever heard in my life. These storms are crazy. We got these two radio towers down the road that just get blasted by lightening left and right.

LA fitness

Ben and I have been good so far with the whole workout thing. The past two days I had a lot of trouble straightening my arms. It was actually impossible to do on wednesday but today we got some movement back. Can't really do the stuff I was able to do back in the day. I've never been more sore in my life. Hopefully the next week will be better. I like to start off by setting the elyptical machine at 30 minutes. Then I usually get off when it reaches 20. Then we try to lift weights. That starts to hurt, then we go home. Things should be better next week.
I just farted and katie is in the room. She hasn't said anything yet. It's pretty bad.
Brewers are looking good but the true test will be this upcoming road trip. Lets extend that win streak! Read up on their draft... I like this catcher prospect we picked up with the first pick. Well I guess I don't really know anything about the guy... but I'm told I should like this catcher prospect. So that's good news.
Shoot, Katie just noticed I farted and yelled at me and left the room.
Well time to workout and then go to work. We changed some things on out menu at work and now we actually have to take a test on it. Pretty stupid.

Brewers?! RIBS!

Brewers are on a hot streak. Bats might be coming alive... Yet everytime I say something like this we go and lose 5 games. So we'll let this one ride a little bit. Then we'll discuss more brewers.
Today is gonna be the first day I've gone to a gym in probably 2... maybe 3 years. I am going to be sore. I'm wondering if I got to do any aerobic type stuff because I do work on my feet for 7 hours a night... but I'm still getting fatter so I guess I should give it a shot. They do have TVs and ESPN on the little machines so it can't be that bad.
Katie and I went to my dad and Jean's place for some ribs last night. It was good to eat something other then frozen pizzas for a change. The ribs were good as always... got to bring some home. After eating we watched some tv show about tv show bloopers. It was pretty much a bunch of clips of people farting and falling while on the air. There's nothing funnier than that.
Well I got to get going. I just wrote our rent check out but didn't put the cash in the bank yet. I should get on that. GO BREWERS!

Katie's wedding website

Katie is putting together one hell of a website. I highly suggest you guys check it out. She even set up a map with a bunch of places for people to go and eat and all that. She also has a list of pretty much all the places to stay up there. So go to http://www.kamrathtomcnamara.ourweddingday.com/ and tell her what you think.

Other news. The restaurant is slow as can be right now. This weekend doesn't look too promising. Mainly because everyone will be in the water st. area for riversplash. But that doesn't stop them from over staffing the hell out of the place just to guarantee no one can make any money. This saturday we have more servers than we've ever staffed working yet we have the fewest reservations I've seen on a saturday since I've started there. Go figure, I'll enjoy my 20 bucks I guess. Starting to look for some daytime work now. Oh, Ben and I looked at gyms today. Elite is the most overpriced gym in the history of gyms. $300 just to start. Then you have to pay $65 a month... and sign a year long contract. Lets compare that to LA fitness in Bayshore mall -- $99 to start. $35 a month. No contract. LA fitness has a pool- elite doesn't. Oh but elite has tennis courts... that you have to pay extra to use. Dad, why the hell are you a member of this place? If you and Jean like tossing money around, toss some this way. HA! I think I'm gonna do this LA fitness place. Ben and I got to look sexy for our weddings. Another random thing. While we were at Elite the saleswoman asked Ben or I if we had any kids. Ben says, "not that I know of..." As a joke of course... but the woman seemed seriously freaked out by that. Then she tried to give us a rundown of the place while there's a brewer game going on on the tv behind her. Needless to say we had no idea what she was saying. I just know she wouldn't stop talking for a really long time.
Brewers sucked today but they didn't suck the past two days. Lets see if they suck tomorrow. Go brewers!

Memorial Day Weekend!

This is gonna be a rough one. If there was ever time i'd want 3 days off from work this would not be it. We got no car and no money. It's gonna be 3 days of just sitting at home and waiting to go to work. We can probably put together all the stuff we're going to um... stuff into the invitations. That is what I'm going to do today. The brewers play in about an hour, I think I'll check that out -- until it becomes too hard to watch. I got some Prince Fielder bobble heads I can throw on ebay. I should probably do that fast because after this year his stuff might not be worth so much. I told everyone at the beginning of the year, this vegetarian thing is not good. I told everyone what must be done to fix it. We must find a way to trade for So Taguchi. He is our only hope. Maybe I'll mail him a Joe Bu. That's all I got for now. Enjoy your weekends. GO BREWERS!

Trip to Door County

Katie and I spent last Sunday and Monday in Door County. The season is just about to get underway up there. Kind of fun seeing everyone get prepared. We visited our old restaurant and saw pretty much nothing changed there. Same staff, same food. We splurged on a couple prime steaks that we couldn't afford. If I had to eat one thing for the rest of my life it would be that. That or wontons. Or Skyline Chili. Or Big City burritos. If I had to eat 4 things for the rest of my life, that would be it. When I was in college I once ate the same burrito for lunch for 3 months straight.... Ok back to the door country trip. Wait nevermind... I just read katie's blog and she already said everything I was going to say. So if you are interested, go to www.katieinmilwaukee.blogspot.com.
We're trying to get invitations moving sooner than later. One main reason is because rooms in Door County go fast. It looks like the onsite lodging is going to be booked by family and wedding party. So everyone else has to find another spot. We're going to throw in some hotel info and maps in the invitations.
I just had the most ADD 2 minutes in my entire life. I threw a Mama Michelina's in the microwave. Then as it was microwaving I made myself a bowl of captain crunch -- with the crunch berries. Then I started writing on this blog. Got bored of that, then tried to watch TV in the other room. The satellite was out so I returned to this computer. Then the microwave dinged -- thus reminding me that I put food in the microwave. Wasn't up for mixing captain crunch with three cheese chicken and rice so I made Katie eat it. Now I'm typing this paragraph.
I'm getting tired of having to spend a thousand dollars on things. Rent and power bill = $1000. Car bill = $1500. Taxes = $1000. Katie's upcoming dental bill = ~$1500. $5700 in 2 months. $3700 of that is in unexpected payments. This sucks. I don't even know how we're paying it. We have to make $200 tonight just to be able to pay to get the car back. We also spent like $300 on invitations and $300 more in Door County. Then we got to grab $900 in a total of 6 shifts at work to pay rent. Gonna be a lot of eggs, rice, and busses for the next couple weeks.

Finally, I will end this blog by wishing Jean a belated happy birthday! Hope you and dad are enjoying your time in door county. I think you guys are due a vacation from vacationing. HA!
go brewers I guess.....

Ben Suesskind returns

May 17th will now be known as Ben Suesskind day in Milwaukee. After a 7 year hiatus, Ben is loading up the truck and heading north. When called for comment this morning Ben responded, "I can't talk on my cell phone, Chicago has a law against that... I'll call you later." More on this story when further details are discovered.

Oh and he got engaged. Now it's wedding planning time Ben. Have fun!

go brewers?

NERDS!

http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=5/13/2008&id=39589

UW-Madison nerds were dealt a serious blow as fire officals struggle to find the cause of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fire last night. The fire is still under investigation but authorities believe the well known Sig-ep and all american offensive lineman Fred Palowakski is a person of interest. According to students, things started getting crazy around 11:00 PM when Palowakski was entertaining partygoers with his infamous vodka fireballs to chants of his nickname -- Ogre. Well things got out of hand and the fire spread to the curtains and later lead to the complete destruction of the house.

Burdoned with the pressures of finding residences for 25 of the university's star athletes, UW-Madison Dean of students -- Lori Berquam (under pressure from UW football coach Bret Bielema) was forced to move the star athletes into Sellery Hall. Also known as the "nerd dorm." Former residents had their belongings scattered across the quad as they were forced to evacuate and take shelter in the nearby Kohl center until further notice.

When approached for comment about this apparent injustice, Sig-ep and greek counsil president Stan Gable simply stated, "NERDS!"

Nerd descrimination has long been an issue at UW-Madison and current enrolled nerds -- Lewis Skolnik and Gilbert Lowell plan to change that. "I just wanted to say that I'm a nerd, and I'm here tonight to stand up for the rights of other nerds. I mean uh, all our lives we've been laughed at and made to feel inferior. And tonight, those bastards, they trashed our house. Why? Cause we're smart? Cause we look different? Well, we're not. I'm a nerd, and uh, I'm pretty proud of it." Says Lowell. Skolnik adds, "I'm a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news for the beautiful people. There's a lot more of us then there are of you. I know there's alumni here tonight. When you went to Adams you might've been called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Any of you that have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down, whether you think you're a nerd or not, why don't you just come down here and join us. Okay? Come on."

Many believe this may be the start of a nerd revolution. With the support of Lambda lambda lambda's national chapter Skolnik and Lowell strive to make it onto the Greek counsil and change things at UW-madison once and for all.

Oh, and the brewers won. I was at that game sitting right on the first baseline. You see that error by Kennedy? I totally caused that by calling for the ball at the last minute. You're welcome.

Mother's day

I'd like to say happy mother's day to my mom. So happy mother's day! Katie and I got the wedding invitations. They suck... kinda... We're gonna go to a craft store and try to doctor them up a bit. So there goes 300 bucks. Things are supposed to go wrong with weddings though so we're cool. No panicing yet. Is that how you spell panicing? Katie thinks it might be panicking. looks weird.



Work got insanely busy last night. I haven't seen anything like it. They just added a bunch of small tables in the bar which people are now using to eat. I bartended for pretty much the first time there and it was the busiest/most hectic 4 hours that I've ever experienced in a restaurant. I was in charge of making drinks for the restaurant and taking care of 7 new tables... at once... they all ordered full course dinners... Horrible... I was a rockstar though, I got that food out. They're gonna add a few more tables to the outside patio in about a month. Things should get pretty crazy. Personally I don't think the kitchen can handle the volume but we'll see. I mean they can't really handle the restaurant alone filling up. 11 extra tables is probably going to be a disaster. They're pretty slow. I miss my amigos at the summertime. Now those guys could get your food out. In my opinion, loading up on tables now will get you a quick buck but people are going to start getting tired of waiting for 2 hours for some fish. If the kitchen doesn't pick it up I could see this hurting them in the long run but we'll see. I wonder if anyone from work reads my blog? Hope not.



Well Katie and I are gonna head up and see her mom tonight then fly back home tomorrow afternoon. We have to do a wine tasting on monday. Kind of sucks because it's one of the rare weeknights that Katie and I both have off, yet we still have to show up for this mandatory meeting. Whoa... out of boredom I just hit my shift key a bunch of times and some application called "sticky keys" popped up. I wonder what that does? Try it out. Might only work on windows.



Little brewers news, they still kind of suck. Gagne realizes that he kinda sucks. Nothing we can really do about it. GO BREWERS!

SLUMP!

Man the brewers are in a hole right now. We can't hit and we can't pitch. When that happens you usually lose baseball games.

Other news. Cinco de Mayo just came around. Katie and I celebrated by taking in a couple Mexicans we used to work with in Door County. I had to work through most of the fun but we hit up Conejitos for lunch and stopped over at la fuente at night. Got some pictures... I'll put them up once Katie wakes up and tells me where the camera cable is.

I just got Grand Theft Auto 4 and it has been occupying way too much of my time. Those games are seriously the most addicting things ever. The action never stops! I liked the map and story board of GTA San Andreas much more but the graphics and gameplay of this version are incredible.

I'm up pretty early today. We forgot to set the alarm to move our car so we woke up to the sound of our neighbors ringing our doorbell and pounding on the door. I love it when that happens. I also made the brilliant decision to pound some Oakland Gyros 5 minutes before heading to bed so that pretty much kept me up.

I'll end with a random tidbit... There was this two week span in which I set off every single security alarm upon leaving stores. Without fail, everyone of the things would ring. Then one day it just stopped. I liked having the ability to magically set off security alarms and was saddened when the streak ended. I wonder what caused it, anyone know? GO BREWERS!

there's always next season

our best pitcher is hurt because some cub jackass slid into firstbase. Maybe next year. go brewers...

CAMERON MANIA... and green didn't go so well

Mike Cameron came back into the brewer lineup with a vengeance last night. He reached base 4 times with a double, two singles, and a walk. He was accountable for 4 runs -- scoring twice and driving 2 in. It was crazy to see the brewer lineup finally heat up in the 30 degree chicago weather. Interesting thought here... why not schedule these april cubs/brewers games at miller park? Whatever, I guess you can't make the cubs start the first 2 months of the year on the road. Then when the games really counted they'd have nothing but home stands. No no no, I'm glad to head down to chicago and beat them this time of year. Ben Sheets had a rough outing but at least he had an outing. We did beat one of their worst pitchers with our "ace." We'll see how Suppan fares tonight. Lets see if this turns us around a bit. I'll take 10 runs a game any day. GO BREWERS!

Anyone check out the wedding site katie set up? Pretty informative. Higgins and I picked out tuxes last saturday. Now we got to have Katie look at what we came up with and change everything. Gonna go cake and photographer shopping soon. In other news Katie's sister Marcie Schelble just gave birth to a 7 pound baby girl, Brooklynn Mae, just after midnight on the 29th so I guess that adds another to the list of newly acquired nieces and nephews. There's a lot of em.

Sorry about the green debacle, we're back to standard blue format. Rock on.

Wedding Website

http://kamrathtomcnamara.ourweddingday.com/

Check it out!

Brewers anger me... and we're GREEN!

Why can't we score runs? I thought we were supposed to score a bunch of runs this year... but we aren't. It is horribly frustrating to watch. Wes Helms just beat us with a ten inning homer. Remember that guy? He's terrible. Prince came up in 3 clutch 2 out situations yesterday and accomplished nothing. Give me something to get excited about. You think Mike Cameron will change things around once he gets into that number 2 spot? I hope so.

In other news, Higgins gave Katie and I the tour of the landmark condos building. His apartment was pretty cool and clean, nice balcony, bigger than you'd think. The pool was amazing seeing that Yovanni Guillardo was swimming in it as we walked through there. That's right, Milwaukee Brewer ACE Yovanni Guillardo. We walked in there a few hours after going to the game so we were obviously decked out in some brewer gear... which made the encounter kind of awkward. I just kind of walked past him and giggled. I should of asked for an autograph or something, but the guy was swimming with his wife and little kid. He was technically at home as well. I didn't want to be that guy who ruined everything. That's all for now. GO BREWERS!

Great article Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=744060

Great investigative journalism Ellen Gabler. Ellen goes ahead and reports the shocking revelation that 37% of Milwaukee restaurants have had a health code violation then procedes to tell us the three Milwaukee horror stories that she was able to compile after 10 years of "research." What bothers me is she acts as if all health violations are as disgusting as the three she listed. She's acting like 37% of Milwaukee's restaurants are cockraoch infested hell holes. I got a few of the more common health code violations for you that may put some people at ease.

1) Adding more then a cap full of bleach to a gallon of water that is above room temperature. More then a cap full is considered toxic and if the water is above room temperature they fear the solution is going to become airborn and poison our guests. Just consider this the next time you dump a gallon of clorox in your tub. You survived right?

2) Staff taking a break/eating in a non designated area.

3) Leaving the ice scoop in the ice bin.

Some things I've noticed after being in the Milwaukee restaurant business for some time. Bosley on Brady has a perfect bill of health. I believed they were inspected within the past two months and passed everything with flying colors. Then there's Turner Hall across from the Bradley Center. In my short tenure there I must have spotted over 50 cockroaches. I would never ever drink out of one of their glasses or eat with any of their silverware. I used my own plastic cup to drink water out of while I worked there. I'm sorry but when you wash 2000 glasses in one gallon of water, things aren't gonna get clean. Then the silverware, they run that threw the same dishwasher that has washed over 4000 dishes... just once. The servers then sit in a room with napkins, wipe off the food chunk residue, then wrap those suckers up. Tasty. How that place isn't nailed yet is beyond me. Can you grandfather in cockroach infestations? Oh and their beer cooler was always covered with this thick brown sludge. So think about that next time you suck down a bottle of miller lite at turner hall.

Sorry, I hate Turner's and everything that has to do with owner RC Shmidt, Shmitt? Schmidt? Who cares, come on buddy you're like 50. You can drop the RC, high school football ended 30 years ago. They say you can judge a lot about a man by the way he treats his inferiors. If so, this guy is the biggest peice of shit to walk this earth. Sorry about the language grandma.

Wow, this blog turned from me complaining about this ridiculous article to me hating Turners. Whatever. GO BREWERS! I'm going to the game in 20 minutes. Lets win this series!