b.rox

Ahhh… tea, just the way I like it.

(Back on the caffeine again after almost a month.)

I haven’t consumed an alcoholic beverage since Mardi Gras. A number of my friends “kinda sorta” gave up alcohol for Lent, but they all gave up on giving up some weeks ago, and they look at me with a mixture of amazement and annoyance.
Instead of alcohol, I’ve mostly been drinking mineral water. After sampling a [...]

Last night I tended bar at a party for about 20 minutes, having been conscripted by the host. I thought that was noteworthy since I’ve produced a television series, ostensibly about mixed drinks, for over a dozen years now, but I’ve never tended bar before.
It was fun. And not nearly as hard as Bartender J [...]

A tip of the hat to Joe Backwards-7. He came all the way from Boise, Idaho to do some massive re-plumbing work on the central post office here in New Orleans. He’s also a long-time fan of the show, and so he took Xy and David and I out for dinner at Tommy’s last night. [...]

Been too busy and too preoccupied to post, so here’s a random grab-bag update. My apologies if this seems somewhat haphazard or disjointed.
We continue to chip away at basic clean-up tasks.
I bought a pressure washer.
The electrician was supposed to show up today, but he didn’t. The insurance company was supposed to call today, but they [...]

I’m not sure exactly what chitterlings (a.k.a. chitlins) are, and I’m not sure I want to know, but I just had a plate-full at the Two Sisters Restaurant. I don’t think I’d order them again. Don’t get me wrong: I cleaned my plate. But I liked the greens and the yams and the potato salad [...]

Everything you need to know about me, you can learn from how I like my iced tea:

Luzianne’s my brand. Besides tasting fine, it’s made by Reily Foods Company which is based in New Orleans. I like the idea of supporting the local economy. I nourish the hope that, in a more enlightened future, we’ll deem [...]

Viriler. That’s the word I used as the first play of our first game of Scrabble last night. (It was four-way Scrabble: Xy vs. me vs. MaPó vs. Martin, whom we had over for basil burgers.) Because it cleared my tray, it was worth 70-some points, and of course awed my opponents. A pretty good [...]

I take my coffee black — no cream, no sugar.
(Actually I don’t take my coffee at all at the moment. After two and a half weeks without caffeine of any kind, I’m back on the iced tea. But that’s a subject for another post.)
Xy, on the other hand, takes hers with enough sugar to kill [...]

I went to the Farmers’ Market in Mid-City yesterday and picked up some cilantro pesto for dinner. It was good (but pricey at $5.50).
I also got a bottle of fresh-squeezed juice: apple and lemon and habanero pepper. Wow! It was delicious, ice cold and spicy hot.
I’ve never had spicy fruit juice before. In fact the [...]

Last night Xy and I went out to Jamila’s Caf?© for dinner.
As we sat at our table on the sidewalk, a bearded man lurched up, looked directly at me, and blurted, “I hate America.”
Without missing a beat or even blinking, I replied, “So do I.”
(If we’d been having a nice sit-down chat, I might have [...]

News Flash: A scientific study indicates that malt liquor is the drink of choice for homeless and jobless people.
Who knew?
On a related note, I had my first non-alcoholic visit to a bar last night when Xy and I went to Tyler’s for oysters and beer. I had an O’Doul’s. What the hell, I felt reckless [...]

So for lunch I’m enjoying some Sunsweet Gold Label Orange Essence Dried Plums, and once again my attention is diverted by some text on the back of the package, just like a couple weeks ago. Only this time, I notice a different blurb:
Sunsweet Dried Plums are so nutritious, people send us amazing testimonials! Read these [...]

It may seem ridiculous, but I gave up alcohol for Lent. Even though I’m not Christian, I find something ever-so-slightly appealing in the idea. I like to break my habits. It’s not just for the sake of my innate perversity; breaking habits is refreshing. Plus not drinking for forty days might even be healthy.
Yesterday was [...]

I just discovered the Technorati Tags page, and I was tickled to see that a picture I just posted on Flickr was displayed at the top of the Food page (but not for long). It is, however, the sole content listed for the RedBeansAndRice tag.

Oh, and in case this picture makes you hungry, here’s the [...]

Reading the promotional text on the back of my Sunsweet Gold Label Cherry Essence Dried Plums led me to the Nutrition Density Index. Basically it’s just a big image which looks a lot like the back of the fruit package which led me there in the first place. No new information. It’s one of the [...]

Today is Xy’s birthday. She thought she was turning 37 for a while, and was relieved to discover she’s only 36. Yup, she’s old enough that she forgot how old she was. I reached that point a few years ago. I have to stop and do the math.
Last night we celebrated with dinner at Restaurant [...]

Jaylene Marsh came to visit us for Thanksgiving. She drove down from Indianapolis yesterday, and today she took this picture with her phone and e-mailed it to me. I posted the picture to Flickr. (Thanks, Rachel, for turning me on to the site.) So this is my first real attempt to post from Flickr [...]

The rain has not been constant. But almost. Turns out it’s Tropical Storm Matthew.
I’d said it rains a lot here in New Orleans. This is true in terms of inches (approx. 60″ per year) but we tend to have a fair amount of sunny days. We get torrential downpours, but we also get lots of [...]

Xy and I went to an art extravafreakoutganza at the Big Top Gallery, something called Meow Mix that Heather Weathers put together. Everything had a feline theme. For example, they were serving some sort of “milk punch,” which actually tasted as nasty as it sounds. Xy took advantage of the grooming station to get her [...]