Leftover Chinese Crosses the Line


Tiles (the Second Cat)

Boots the cat has been bored, restless and anti-social as of late. I felt he could stand to use a little company while I'm not around so I went to the pound and got him a furry gray friend. I guess you can mark me down under the crazy cat person category.

Tiles has an extra claw, a very outgoing personality, and his meow sounds like a chortle. Hopefully the roommates will become fast friends. The incumbent is not too sure of what to make of the new fella, but I'll do what I can.

. . [~] . 2 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Sort of Feels Bad for that Kid

At lunch today there was an apparent job interview being conducted a few tables away from us. The interviewer looked to be a tall, nerdy type while the wide-eyed interviewee had that look like he really needed something to do after college. So they concluded the interview, shook hands, and walked towards the door. The interview appeared to have gone well. The interviewee looked optimistic.

As they passed our table and headed towards the exit behind me, the interviewer held what looked to be a laminated resume. A few seconds later, the interviewer reappeared in my field of vision sans resume.

M: "Holy hell, that guy threw that resume away!"
E: "You're kidding me."
M: "Yeah, I saw him trash it."

On our way out, we peered into the trash containers and sure enough, the resume sat on top in all of its laminated glory. Sorry, kid. Maybe next time.

. . [~] . 2 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Makes it Thirty Innings in Seven Days


Militant Ushers


Lefty batter against Lefty pitcher out of desperation


Wind blowing in. 40 Degrees.

This time around, I got the full Spring treatment with a nice seventy minute drizzle delay and a rout of the good guys. Though the tickets were a nice favor from the bossman, I went on to consume two hot dogs, two beers, one calzone, and a hometeam-themed beanie cap purchased because I really needed to feel a tad warmer. An okay/expensive time was...enjoyed.

. . [~] . 0 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Chuckles at the Follow Up Song

Staying on the progressive front, this band spent the entire 1970's rotating lineups, creating opus after opus of complex guitar structure, busier basslines, lyrics that always mentioned nature, and vocals that were just as high, but not as shrill as Geddy Lee. Most of the time, you're wondering what the hell is going on during these songs but once in a while, you have that moment where you think: "I'm not ashamed to like this shit."

Yes, I'm talking about Yes.

The band's most popular commercial hit, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was produced in 1982 as the band tried to adapt to the MTV era. They keep some of the elements of the '70's with the harmonies and Steve Howe's wizardry, but they still try to cram a lot into simple pop formulae. While "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is characterized as a very distinctive Yes song, they couldn't go too far with the idea of creating pop songs in the style of Yes. They compensate by writing a few tracks that serve as a barometer of what was hot at the time.

This week's DEEP CUT is the following track on the album. Done in the style of Toto, a retrospective listen will either make you cry or laugh. I laughed. Seems strange to me now that any band would want to emulate their peers in Toto, but at the time "Hold the Line" was a well crafted and popular single.

Again, I'm not sure if this is tribute or insult...but you'll hear what I'm talking about as soon as your hear the opening drum fill.

. . [~] . 2 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Watches Twelve Innings



After contacting a stranger on the internet and having him drive down to the city to sell me his season seats for the game, I witnessed one of the best baseball games I've ever seen in person. Now, I'm not against meeting people from the internet, but men in fancy sports cars? Nope...not my style.

The good guys were down by four runs, came back, sent most of the hometeam fans packing after 9 innings, they then gritted out three extra innings until the big hit in the 12th. I left my ID behind and Ms. B had to buy beer at the concession stands and smuggle them back to me. Leftover Chinese 1 - Wrigley Field 0.

I also learned that the park isn't allowed to play loud music after the 9th (or maybe it's 10:30) so as not to annoy the neighbors. It's weird watching MLB players warm up with only the din of the crowd. I kind of like that old-timey feel.

On the way out of the park, I heard some guy say: "lemme find a brewer fan so I can fuck him up." All I could do was laugh and tell him I've been waiting 20 years to finally see a good Brewer team. No arguments on that one. It's strange/awesome to see the brewers flag on the top spot while knowing it's no fluke.

. . [~] . 0 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese was There...



...the day (after) Mark Buehrle threw a no-hitter. [emoticon]

This follows the tradition of going to games around historical events such as the time I was in line to get into County Stadium when Robin Yount got his 2,999 hit. I thought #3,000 would happen the same night. Nope. Instead somebody threw a shoe on to the field after his last at-bat of the night...then everybody went home with an inning and half to play.

Still, I'm just happy to be watching live baseball again.

. . [~] . 1 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Listens to Side Two

[Living Sin]

From ELP's Trilogy (1972).

Funny how this phase coincides with the return of Major League Baseball...I've been listening to a lot of classic rock lately. Some of the finds are 'new' classics. Stuff I never heard beyond the single. Others are extensions of what used to be in my rotation way back when. It's been a fun study so far.

In this week's feature we find the progressive rock band stepping out of character to give fans their version of a Frank Zappa song.

Was it a pretentious (see minute 2:45 of the youtube link...better yet, just read the description) move by a band known for excessive music? Am I even close with the reference? I can't really tell if the song is a tribute, coincidence, or an insult. Who knows...for an otherwise clean sounding band, it's got a nice sway to it.

. . [~] . 0 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Spent too Much Time with Cats this Weekend

It's difficult to broker peace between animals with a video camera in one hand while expecting to capture usable fight footage. One on hand, I wanted to frame and capture the action. On the other hand I had to make sure both cats got through the weekend in good shape. A few hours featured an uneasy truce, but for the most part it was cat-fight city.

The following screen captures pretty much tell the story about the afternoon I let the guest cat and house cat occupy the same rooms. Let's just say the guest cat accepted nothing less than total domination.


Closest thing to peace.


Standoffs.


The house cat was not a fan of being bullied.

. . [~] . 2 (Grumble) Grumbles .

Leftover Chinese Gets some Free Time



...after spending my week in front of a computer, I decided to spend today in front of two computers and a TV. The senses are adequately loaded.

. . [~] .

Leftover Leftover Leftover (Chinese)

Don't you hate arguing with people at restaurants?

I was at the heralded Billy Goat (a satellite location) today to pick up a few burgers and placed my order for two single hamburgers and waited in line. When it came time to holler at the line cooks, I said "two singles" since I didn't want to confuse them on Triple Cheese Burger day (heh).

Moments later, they plop two cheeseburgers in front of me and my protests were met with confusion. As I explained I would have said "two single cheeseburgers" if I wanted cheese, they gave me looks like I was the crazy one and that I specifically said I ordered two cheeseburgers. I repeated that I said "two singles." They looked at the register lady for back-up and she just shrugged. Nope. Plain.

Yes, I do in fact despise cheese. Especially cheddar. How subtracting an ingredient backs up the entire line is beyond my comprehension. Thankfully the way they sarcastically wrapped by plain burgers put a smile on my face.

The lesson here: Cheeseburger = normal. Hamburger = freak.

Burger grade = C.

. . [~] .

The Internet Scares Leftover Chinese

...so he writes a meta-post.

Perhaps I wanted this to happen. The deep-fried slider video has some traffic from another web log. Apparently, somebody wrote an article about the deep-fried slider as the new attraction at a minor league baseball park. Another web log picked this up and added some commentary. Later that day, a different contributor to the same site did a quick search on youtube and found the video. A third web log found that post and warned people about the unsanitary language. Heh.

There are so many ways to look at this, so instead I'll just say that last night I found my parents Dean Martin CD's and ripped them to my computer. Happy Easter.

. . [~] .

Pondering Life with Leftover Chinese

It's either really sad or really awesome that in helping a municipality resurrect a real estate purchase*, I felt like I actually made a difference today.

* - a chunk of concrete behind a bar for the price of $10.

. . [~] .

Leftover Chinese Gives you an Opening Day Present



Any kid (or fan for that matter) who grew up near the hometown and rooted for the local baseball team in the mid-80's will remember this catchy song that usually ran during Radio and TV promos.

There was a time back in college when my buddy Brendan and I would (obviously intoxicated) launch into a rendition of the chorus of the song to a bunch of confused looks. The team was awful back then and most people pretended to not know what we were talking about.

Thanks to the powers of the internet and my recently renewed interest in the fan message board of said team, I finally have the file and would like to share it with you. I've had the song on repeat for the past half hour...seriously.

Hopefully this squadron will compete for the playoffs. When the new ownership took over before the '04 season, I said '07 or '08 would be the year they make the playoffs. I hope to be right. I've been suffering too long for this team.

VIVA DE BEISBOL!

. . [~] .