Let The Smoking Memories Begin

As I walked into The Winking Lizard last night, I saw the saddest sign posted all over my favorite smoking establishment. Effective December 8, The Lizard will be smoke-free. While I know almost every bar/restaurant in Ohio is going in this direction, this one hurts the most. There was always something so special about the smoking section there. This is where you could watch 20 differenct large screen televisions, sit at the bar and ask about all the different draft beers, play pool, arcade bowl or play darts. In the non-smoking room, if you didn't get the right seat, you would have to squint to catch the game on the small mounted televsions in each corner. It was always so quiet in that weird little non-smoking room--like you were in a library or at someone's wake. The Winking Lizard made it cool to be a smoker and they made it a lot more fun as well. It was almost as if they were telling their customers: "Sure you can sit in non-smoking but you aren't going to have any fun."

As Liz and I sat there last night, we talked about how this was our favorite place to go and have a beer and cigarette. We even had a funny memory to illustrate the significance. When she and I came back from Massachusetts last year, after a vacation in a non-smoking state, the first thing we did after we got back from the airport was head to the Lizard for a beer and a smoke. While most people are exhausted from traveling or would rather go to their neighborhood bar, we missed smoking inside and we missed smoking inside at the Lizard. I can only imagine how I am going to feel after December 8. RIP best smoking section in Cleveland.

*The writer of this blog does not condone smoking

The Gasman Always Rings Once

As I was getting ready for work this morning, my doorbell rang. This almost never happens . In order to get to the door, I have to find my keys because I can't open my door without them, and then I have to run down the backsteps to the door. By the time I got down there, the person who rang the bell was gone. After I finished getting ready for work and walked out the door, there was that damn note from the gas company which said they missed me. I always miss this person and I think it is done on purpose. The gasman is my nemesis (think Jerry Seinfeld and Newman). After they rang the doorbell, they must have ran away because they didn't even wait one minute for me to come down the stairs. This is most concerning to me because I haven't turned my heat on, so I don't want them estimating based on past years. Yeah, I know. I am crazy on so many levels. Most of you know my issues with the gas company. Now I have one more.

My Hero

My brother is my hero. While he may not have rescued a kitten out of tree or saved small children from a burning building, he did do the following this weekend: Started partying in Columbus at 8 am and made it all the way through the game and then got up at 7:45 yesterday morning to drive back to Cleveland so he could start tailgating at 10:30 am and then came home and hung out with me after the game. Maybe he isn't your typical hero but he definitely deserves a shout-out for the work he did this weekend. The picture is a little fuzzy because the photographer had a lack of focus at the time.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

I have done some maintenance on the old blog and added some fun new features. If you scroll down on the right side of the page you will see a new category called "labels". I have categorized all of my entries so that you can look through particular categories. This is really more for my benefit, but I thought I would let you know.

On to the weekend...
Tomorrow is the Ohio State-Michigan game. It is the one day of the year when everyone in Ohio thinks they graduated from Ohio State and it cracks me up. My brother is going to Columbus for the game and I think he is crazy for doing that. You could not pay me enough to be south of Mansfield this weekend. On top of that I am looking forward to a fun weekend with family and friends and parties with both.

I Graduated!

I finally cashed in on my last birthday present and it was worth the wait! Last night I went to beer school at the Great Lakes Brewing Company. It was the coolest thing I think I have done in a long time and I recommend it to anyone in the Cleveland area. For the price of $15, you get to go on a tour of the brewing company, learn the history of the building and surrounding buildings, learn how beer is made, learn how they name their beers, taste their five main beers and then they give you a souveneir glass and an awesome t-shirt that lets everyone know you graduated from beer school. It might be one of my proudest moments and I am sure my parents are equally as proud.

One thing to keep in mind if you do the tour is that you should eat first. I was given this advice by someone who did it before me, so plans were made to go to the Flying Fig. Ironically, and this has never happened at the Fig before, it took our food too long to come out and we weren't able to eat. I am a beer drinker, so I didn't think it would be that big of a deal except for the fact that the beer tasting was more like a drinking contest. While they talk about their five main beers you are drinking each one in a plastic cup (imagine every keg party you have attended but with expensive, good beer). It only takes them about 20 minutes to talk about all the beers, so you have slammed five cups of strong beer in that short time. Hmmm...I wonder if that was why I liked it so much.

Reality Schmality

What a great weekend! The CAVS came back from 20 points down, the Browns beat a playoff contender, we had the second lowest points and we still won our fantasy football game and I won my first week of fantasy basketball. Yes, I came to the realization that fantasy football will not last forever and I will need something to take me through the summer. Therefore, I have decided to join a fantasy basketball league with co-workers (reason #213 why I love my job). Pretty soon everything in my life will just be one big fantasy and I will wake up in my fantasy apartment and go to my fantasy job and then go to fantasy Old Angle for fantasy drinks. Reality is overrated anyway.

Election Events

Here are my quick (and erratic) thoughts from the past couple of days:

The absentee scanning was interesting but relatively uneventful, though the accuracy worries me a little...actually it worries me a lot. I think we are still not quite where we should be in electronic voting. How is it possible we now have cars that parallel park themselves, yet we can't get electronic voting down? Did the computer engineering flunkies all get stuck with election duty?

I was thrilled Tuesday night with all the results and overall it was a great evening. I was, however, saddened Wednesday morning with election news from a close friend, so it was rather bittersweet. It was definitely stupid to not take the day after the election off, as I was up past 3 am trying to catch all the results. As far as the issues go…I wonder how much the passage of issue five (no smoking) is going to hurt issue 18 where cigarette taxes will go to the arts. Also, and I hope everyone saw this on the ballot for issue three, where they broke down the math for the gambling and it went like this: 55% back to the casinos and 35% back to education. Where does the other 10% go? This math made it a little fishy to me.

Overall I am excited about the blue political coup in this state and I hope it can last until the next big election in ’08. Barack Obama, anyone?

A Week Late, But Still Funny

Last week I found a great story about my alma mater on-line from Sports Illustrated. If you know anything about Ohio University, you know it hardly gets written about in major sports publications. However at my former school, Halloween was the biggest sport on campus. While most people think I went to Ohio University for this reason, it was really the former reason. As most students who graduated from Ohio University could tell you, we don't remember very many sporting events, but we could probably tell you about a very memorable Halloween we had there or the first time we got arrested which is usually one in the same.

I Just Voted And You Should Too!

In case you aren't aware of the voting procedures this fall, you have up until Saturday to go to your local board of elections to cast an early ballot. I just did it at lunch and it only took me ten minutes. What a relief it was to get that over with and not have to wait in line on election day.

The League of Women Voters actually has a great website with insight on all the candidates and issues. I found it to be a lot more functional than other sights I went to. My biggest fear about voting early was that I wouldn't get a sticker, but I was so damn excited to be casting my ballot, they actually gave me two.