The Save A Lot Experiment of 2009

I am poor. I just moved out on my own-which is a blog entry all in itself-and now I am feeling the effects of self-sufficiency. So much so that it is time to make sacrifices. Sacrifices like going out and eating and drinking to my heart's content. If this is your first time to my blog, you should know: I like going out to eat and drink. This must now end at least for the moment, or the next two weeks as I begin my new experiment.

The other night I was in Save A Lot, and realized while the food may not be of the best quality, and there is a real lack of choices, the prices can not be beat. My mission if I choose to accept it is to live off only food from Save A Lot from this Sunday up until Super Bowl Sunday (February 1, 2009). To make the mission even a little more difficult, I am going to try and cook only healthy meals or at least something you would not be afraid to feed to a still-growing child. This means I am not going to live off of frozen pizzas and macaroni and cheese for the next two weeks. I am trying to think of it as Iron Chef America on a budget. Updates to follow!

In case you were wondering, they do have beer there, so don't worry about me in that department.

Birthday Month

My birthday isn't until October 21st, but I received two gifts early this year, so I well be able to celebrate the whole month. Next Monday Julie is taking me to the Browns Monday Night Football game against the New York Giants, and yesterday my gift arrived from my parents, who will be out of town for my birthday. Waiting for me when I got home from work was this gem: I wanted something to work out with while I was watching television or on the computer, or just feeling too lazy to go to the gym. You can put it anywhere and just pedal or work on your arms while you are doing other things like drinking beer for instance. I love to multi-task.

It was a tough decision because I almost asked for this chair that I saw on the Ellen Degeneres show. Believe me, this video is worth watching.

Remember When?

Remember when I left for Ireland and many of you told me to take a lot of pictures, and then I came back and you found out I took over 1000 pictures? At that point I am sure many of you hoped and prayed I would not make you sit down with me and go through the story of each picture. Well...fear not! I have gone through all of my pics, cut them down in half, and created a link so that you can go through them as you like or not like as the case may be. This link will bring up all the pictures on one page and then you can either click on a specific picture if you want to see the caption, or you can click on "detail" on the left hand side, and it will photostream the pictures for you, so that you can view them all with the captions. Enjoy my Ireland Pictures!

The Trials And Tribulations Of Tivo

I love Tivo. It has changed my life. Hopefully for the better. We have Tivo on three of our televisions. The main television in the living room can record two things at once, while the other two televisions can only record one thing at a time. Unfortunately you can not watch live television if the television is recording at it's maximum, which can create a funny situation, such as the one it created last night.

In the middle of the CAVS game, a message came up on the screen telling us to decide between the CAVS game and (don't laugh) Grey's Anatomy and Don't Forget The Lyrics, which were both about to start recording in one minute. I yelled: "Oh No!" I obviously wanted to watch the CAVS, but not recording those two shows is not an option in our house, so we had to move and we had to move fast. Julie ran upstairs to record Grey's Anatomy, but she realized we were recording The Office up there, so she then ran down to the basement and was able to record Grey's Anatomy in time leaving me with the ability to watch the CAVS game live in the living room as I cooked dinner. I felt bad as I watched her run back and forth because I had already given up on the game and the CAVS were down by 20 points, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

Don't let this blog fool you, we don't really like Grey's Anatomy. I could see how you might think we do from reading this entry, but we really don't. Seriously. Don't let the fact that we were frantic when we thought we wouldn't be able to watch it lead you to believe that we are actually in any way interested in this show, and if you do draw that conclusion from this entry, please don't tell anyone else.

In other more important, yet unrelated news: 15 days until Ireland.

Happy Birthday To Me (6 Months From Now)

I was partially joking when I told Julie I wanted to go the Monday Night Football game between the Cleveland Browns and the New York Giants on October 13, 2008. By partially joking I meant it in that way when you hope someone takes you seriously, and if they don't, you can just say: "What? I was just joking-I would never really ask for something like that for my birthday six months away from now." Thankfully she took me seriously. Today I got my birthday wish six months in advance when she purchased this view for that evening:

'Tis The Season

It's that time of year again. I am making last-minute preparations, checking my lists twice and planning parties. Of course I can only be talking about one thing: Fantasy Football Playoffs have begun. This year I was in two leagues for the first time, and this year I am lucky enough to have made it to the semi-finals in both my leagues. As much fun and excitement that it has been to be in two leagues at one time, it has also been quite a headache: twice as much research and twice as many decisions. I know! My life is so hard! The most stressful thing (if you can call anything with the word "fantasy" in it stressful) is that many weeks I face players in one league that I have on my team in another league. I will be facing this very situation this weekend. My father and I have a chance to win a lot of money with Adrian Peterson, Edgerrin James and Joey Galloway this weekend in our semi-final game. In my other league, my opponent has these same players and the opportunity to win bragging rights in Cleveland for the next year. I am torn on money versus pride this week. Talk about stressful. I would rather try to find a parking space at the mall on Christmas Eve. Speaking of Christmas...isn't that coming up sometime soon as well?

The Seven-Day Wagon

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday weekend. My weekend was packed full of wonderful Thanksgiving food, moving furniture, the best wings I have ever had in Cleveland, traveling to Detroit to see a concert and of course Sunday football events.

A day after stuffing ourselves with Turkey and stuffing, we worked up another appetite from moving furniture and decided to get wings at the Winking Lizard in Independence. These were the best wings I have ever had at any Winking Lizard. I always recommend that you DONT get their wings on wing night and we were happy to go there on a Friday night with no wing specials in sight. The wings were big, juicy and piping hot covered in our favorite sacues: hot garlic and cajun. They recieved 4.5 wings out of 5 on my scale. I don't know if this is truly the case or not but there was a great football game on the television and the beer tasted extra good on this day, so perhaps the beer and football also made the wings taste better. Speaking of beer...

My doctor put me on a prescription where I can not drink at all. I have not started taking it yet. I just picked it up last night and now I have to decide on a seven-day window where I will not want to drink or the opportunity will not present itself (ahem). I have two friends with birthdays this week and an open bar on Friday night after a play I am attending. Saturday and Sunday is football. Hmmm...this could be a tough decision. I wonder if I can double up on dosage and just take it for 3.5 days. This reminds me of my friend Mindy trying to decide on a good time to get pregnant. Obviously the holidays will never work and the summer is a bad time to stop drinking. I always have to remind her that it is impossible to go through the whole process in less than four months. Though if anyone can do it, it is definitely Mindy.

X-Mas Aled Up (Pub Crawl Blog)

Yesterday my sister came up with a saying to describe my whole weekend. To be "X-Mas Aled Up" is a term she coined after seeing the effects on a person after having one of these beers. Every fall Great Lakes Brewing Company makes their infamous Christmas Ale and releases it for only four months a year. I can only assume this is for safety reasons. This beer does crazy things to people. It's not a normal beer. It's like a super beer.

People run out to get this beer like it's a drug and usually regret it the next day. I have been able to hold myself to only two a night in most situations and usually this is too many. On my pub crawl this past weekend, I waited until my fifth bar out of nine to have my one and only Christmas Ale, and even this was not a good idea. As I look back, it was at this bar where things started going a little awry or shall I say blurry. The next day I tempted fate and drank another one, which led to me hitting my head on my couch (see picture).

As for the pub crawl: I don't think I have ever had so much fun with friends and family. As you can see from the pictures at this link, it was a good time for everybody-even people who didn't know me. By the end we just handed the extra t-shirts out and people all around Ohio City knew my name. I am now looking forward to my "Getting Acquainted with Old Brooklyn" Pub Crawl, but I think I will wait til the Spring so I am not tempted by the Christmas Ale!

Breaking News!

This just in from every major news source in the world: "Keeping slim is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, as is avoiding excessive amounts of red meat and wine, a landmark study has revealed." On Wednesday when this study was announced, I couldn't get away from it. It was on every major news website, and as I worked out that night, it was on almost every television at the gym. Is this really huge news? Who didn't know this? Was there someone out there trying to beat cancer by binge drinking, eating a lot of steak and not exercising, and if so...has that been working? I think my favorite finding of this earth-shattering study is this: "If people must drink, the report said, they should limit their intake to two units a day for a man or one for a woman. A unit is a half pint of beer or a small glass of wine." A half-pint of beer for a woman? Can you actually go to a bar and order a half-pint? I just hope this finding doesn't create longer lines at my gym. Though on the other hand, it might create shorter lines at the bar.

In related news, we tried a new wing place this week called Roosters. We spotted this restaurant last weekend driving through Parma, and vowed to return as they advertised wings on their big bright sign. This was an interesting place because it was a sports bar, but it was really really bright and seemed more family-oriented than anything. The wings were huge, BUT they were breaded and I don't like breaded wings because they take away the crispiness. We ordered extra hot (which they call Donkey for some reason), garlic and teriyaki. The hot wings were unimpressive, but the garlic was very good as was the teriyaki. If you can get past the breading, the wings were fresh, juicy and very filling, but if your claim to fame is wings and you can't make a good hot sauce, I cant possibly award you more than 3.5 wings out of 5. I highly recommend these wings with a good half pint of your favorite beer.

It's Been A Long Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of fun (except the part where the Indians choked to the Red Sox). My birthday week was filled with fun adventures including the opportunity to meet one of my favorite writers, comedians and actresses, Amy Sedaris. A couple days later I went on my birthday goal bike ride from my house to my friend's house in Chagrin Falls (20 miles), and then spent the rest of the day at the Winking Lizard in Bedford, which is a lot more fun than it might sound. Apparently at the Winking Lizard you get a free birthday shot called "The Blowjob" which creates for good photo opportunities, but the taste was too sweet for me. We also taste tested the new wing sauces (spicy seasme and garlic parmesean) they are offering which got a four out of five wings ranking from me.

On my actual birthday we went to Niagara Falls. Before heading to Canada, we stopped in Buffalo for some recommended wings at Gabriel's Gate that were really good (four out of five wings). We had an amazing time in Niagara Falls and got a beautiful room overlooking the Falls at the Marriott. It was a great trip, but Canada is just so damn expensive that it makes it hard to go there anymore. Remember when the American dollar was actually worth something?

Halloween was this past weekend and I decided to do it up this year. I went as Captain Cock Block (Julie went as Q-Bert). For those of you that don't know what a cock block is, here is the definition according to Urban Dictionary: "An act of ill etiquette in which a male is speaking to one female in a group of females, and the alpha female creates a disruptive environment" Now just imagine that in human form, or just check out the slideshow below.

Not Only Was He White, He Was Also Chubby

As you many know by now there was a school shooting in Cleveland yesterday approximately one mile from my job. When I first heard about the shootings, I couldn't get over the fact that this shooting took place in an urban high school. These kinds of school shootings don't happen in the big city. They happen in the rich suburbs. With all the footage shown, one was made to believe that the shooter was black, which shocked the hell out of me because these kind of shootings aren't done by black kids. They are done by crazy white kids. As I watched more and more footage, I still was in shock...until this morning when Julie sent me these pictures and I saw that he was indeed a white student. A very messed up kid if you read over this page and believe that it is really him, though apparently that is not his real picture. I know it's not his real picture becasuse of this future pulitzer prize-winning journalism that gave me more insight into this kid's mind courtesy of cleveland.com: "Asa, who was 14-years-old and is known to have argued with fellow students over religion, was a chubby teen."

Father Of The Year Award

The father of the year award goes to my brother David, who gave up his home opener Browns-Steelers tickets to go to his son's sporting event. His love for his son is my gain. I will be at the game instead of him. I am so excited for football season starting as you can tell from my picture, where I opened a bottle of champagne during the first game of the season last night.

Helmet Addendum

I bought a new helmet for my city biking adventures. Yesterday as I was walking through the house, I was wearing my helmet before I got ready to go biking. I went to close my bathroom window and hit my head on the wall, as I always do, but this time there was no pain. There was only the sound of my helmet against the wall. I then decided I should probably wear the helmet full-time. I would feel a lot safer not only biking around downtown Cleveland, but also walking around my apartment in Ohio City.

Just Like Mapquest

Many of you may be aware that Cleveland was flooded yesterday. My direct route home and the route of many other people in the area was filled with water, up to two feet of water in many places. My office let out at 4:30 because the electricity went out in my building, and I was excited to get home early. Normally if I am let out at this time, I get home by 4:45. This is one of the advantages of living downtown. One of the disadvantages of living downtown is that it floods when we get a storm like we got yesterday. Instead of getting home at 4:45, I pulled in my driveway at 6:30. As I sat in traffic, I dialed up my inner Mapquest and came up with the following route.

1. Get on the Shoreway like you normally would to head West toward Lakewood.

2. Sit still in traffic for 40 minutes.

3. Drive on the side of the road to the lane you usually get in to exit onto 2 West.

4. See the exit for 2 West (as pictured) is flooded and head back three lanes to get onto 90 East. 5. Drive through the flooded lane until you get on higher ground.

6. Get on 90 East and call Roz and say “I’m home free!” until you realize that all the exits on 90 East are also flooded, and there is no way to turn around in either direction because of the traffic jam.

7. Jump onto 271 South and get off to go to the bathroom at the McDonalds in Willoughby because of the iced coffee you drank before you left work.

8. Sit in traffic with all the other people who live in the East suburbs.

9. Take the exit for 480 West and head to the State Road exit which puts you Southwest of the city.

10. Get off at State Road and head home.

11. Don’t forget to have a small panic attack every time you are stuck on a bridge or under a bridge because of what happened in Minneapolis yesterday.

Once I got home, I jumped on my bike and went down to Lake Erie, which was quite calm. I can only assume this is because half of it was sitting over on the Shoreway.

If You Or Someone You Know Myspaces...You Should Read This

Yes I have a myspace page. Yes I am 31 years old. No I am not a sexual predator.

With that said, I know I am a little old to have a myspace page, but I promise I don't use it for creepy reasons (well I guess that depends on how you define creepy). I know a lot of other people my age with a myspace page who use it as flippantly as I use mine. I never thought twice about it until I read this article on the dangers of myspace. I always thought that if I wasnt a naive teenager I would be safe on myspace, and I could ignore all those warnings about how dangerous this website could be. Apparently I was wrong. It really does get you thinking about how you should limit the number of drunk pictures you post of yourself on-line...

Only At Wal-Mart

I am proud to say I don't go to Wal-Mart very often, but I am ashamed to say when I do go, I get sucked in for hours. Once inside, all my political views go right out the door when I see their prices and the intriguing deals only Wal-Mart can offer. I have never seen things packaged together like they are at Wal-Mart. The shampoo comes with hair gel for $4.89, and the body soap comes with lotion for only $3.94. My favorite combo had to be the box of tampons I saw with a free tube of Banana Boat Glow Face. Along with your tampons you get something described as this: "Banana Boat® EveryDay Glow Face Daily Moisturizer SPF 20 uses self-activating tanners to enhance your skin’s natural tone." Can someone please explain to me how these two things go together? Somehow when you are inside the confines of Wal-Mart this makes sense.

I Am Not Afraid Of The Cleveland+ Mafia

I got the following voicemail yesterday:
“Looks like someone is too afraid of the Cleveland+ Mafia to voice their opinion.”

It's true I do believe there is a Cleveland+ Mafia watchdog group keeping an eye on blogs and feedback, but I am not afraid of these people. For those of you unfamiliar with this issue, Cleveland+ is the new marketing campaign focusing not only on Cleveland but all of Northeast Ohio which will cost millions in marketing. In essence the plan wants to incorporate Akron, Canton and Youngstown to lure tourists, businesses and to give residents of the area a big helping of regionalism. I wanted to take some time to research the issue more before I went on the record, or at least put it on my blog where 3-4 people could read my opinion.

Let me just say as a Believe in Clevelander: I am not thrilled with the whole “Cleveland+” marketing campaign. I would also like to say I believe in regionalism. The fact that Parma, Parma Heights and North Olmsted are considering combining fire departments makes perfect sense to me. Akron adverstising the Cleveland Museum of Art, located on their tourist site does not. Maybe Believe in Cleveland made me this way, maybe I am a Cleveland elitest now. Thanks a lot Hanford Dixon! I just don't get how this particular catch phrase makes sense. The campaign involves Cleveland and all cities within an hours drive (including my hometown of Shalersville, OH, which is a huge tourist stop now thanks to Cleveland+).

The campaign is saying to me, if you liked Cleveland, you are going to love Cleveland+, but what exactly does the plus stand for? What happens to the identity of all the other cities? Now Canton is home to not only the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but also the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I do agree with the original concept of trying to bring Northeast Ohio together, but why make it so that everyone else rides the coattails of Cleveland? I think it puts unfair pressure on Cleveland, which is struggling to support itself, to support everyone else too. To me this whole issue makes Cleveland that kid in gym class who gets stuck picking kids for his team that he isn't sure about. "Ok, uhhhh....I will take Akron. Uh....Hmmm....Youngstown, and...let's see...I guess Canton is the only one left, so I will take Canton too." Now Cleveland is in charge of making this team win because the soap box derby only runs one day a year in Akron, The Pro Football Hall of Fame doesn't change very often and the Canfield County Fair only runs for a week. The focus on Cleveland is too much. To exemplify this, here is a quote from Kristie Van Auken, one of the branding gurus of Cleveland+ and The Akron-Canton Airport Director of Marketing and Communications, regarding the unveiling of Cleveland+. In her press release, she sold this great new idea by saying: "Did you know that the Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Cleveland Browns are all within a 45 minute drive of the Akron Canton Airport?" This makes it seem that the point of the campaign is to let people know how far away they are from enjoying Cleveland. Perhaps we should just call it Mapquest+ (just don't let the Cleveland+ Mafia know I said that because I might just be a little afraid).

It Was Bound To Happen

From the Cleveland State University Home Page:

Important Safety Message from President Michael Schwartz

I wish to share with you our response to a disturbing event. Some hand-written graffiti was found in a restroom stall in Main Classroom yesterday afternoon which threatens a repeat of the Virginia Tech event for May 12 – our commencement day.

I view this with grave concern and am taking every precaution to insure that our campus and commencement exercises are safe and secure and that commencement is the joyous occasion that all of us expect. To that end, the University Police have been in touch with the City of Cleveland’s Police Department and I have asked Governor Strickland for assistance from the Ohio Highway Patrol. The Governor has assured me of that help and I already have spoken to the Director of Public Safety and officials at the Highway Patrol. In addition, I have ordered that there be metal detectors at all entrances to the Wolstein Center on commencement day. You can be of special help to the University by keeping us informed of any suspicious activity and suspect behavior that you note or that may be related to this issue. You can call the University Police at 687.2020. We are determined to make our campus as safe and secure as it can be.

I appreciate your concern and, needless to say, I share it. As events warrant, I will keep you informed.

Not to make light of the situation, but after seeing this, my co-worker said: "Can you imagine if they acted like this with everything written on a bathroom stall?"

Strong Enough For A Man But Made For A Locked Up Glass Case At My Local Ghetto Store

On the way to get wings last Thursday in Tremont I had to stop for cigarettes. While in the little ghetto store across the street from Lincoln Park Pub, I realized I also needed deoderant. As I walked up and down every eclectic aisle in this little store, I could not find any deoderant. When I walked up to the counter to inquire where it might be, the gentleman behind the counter pointed to a locked glass case underneath him. Inside that locked glass case I saw toothpaste, deoderant and body soap. I had to point at the one I wanted like I was at a deli. He then had to unlock the case to get my deoderant, and as he did this I wondered if I was getting some secret magic deoderant. Alas, it was regular Secret deoderant worth only $2.49. I laughed thinking how I passed much more expensive things while looking for the deoderant, but apparently there must be high crime on items used for hygiene. The only thing I could think of is there has to be some special ingredient in my deoderant used for drugs. If anyone knows a drug recipe using my Secret Spring Breeze deoderant, could you please pass it along?

Pro (Social) Life

As I was driving home down West 25th street past Metro Health Hospital, I may have seen one of the strangest events of my life. I saw the first man with a "Stop Abortion" sign and got the creeps, but kept driving. About fifty yards ahead at the stoplight there was another group of about ten protesters, and I was stuck at a red light looking at their gross signs. Keep in mind this had to have been the homeliest group of people I have ever seen. I always find it to be so ironic how ugly pro-life protesters look, but I guess in a way it makes sense. Nonetheless, I see the protesters walking out into the street where I thought the car behind me may have been yelling slurs at them like I wish I would have done. But NO, this is not the case at all. The protesters start hugging and high-fiving the people in the car behind me in a show of comraderie. I was stunned. I couldn't even move when the light turned green. I just sat there wondering if somehow I got stuck in the middle of some pro-life parade, but with much less candy and really ugly people.