Yard Sale Adventures #001

We got out for some good quality yard sale adventures this morning. Yeah we ended up with more junk we don't need to add to all the existing junk we don't need. But at least it's new junk with new amusement value and cost us less than $10 total. Oh yeah... there's one tiki... that I really really did need.

In the first frame we find:

• a picture of a cat that sort of looks like Ginger as a kitten
• an Eric Carle book called Draw Me A Star
• a picture of a goat with watermelons and a chicken
• The Hardy Boys #36, The Secret of Pirates' Hill

Dave and Danielle get first shot at the Hardy Boys book. Otherwise I'll add it to my small collection of them. Perhaps I will finally get to read the ones I never had as a kid.



I eventually found A TIKI and some some other mugs:



I really just wanted the tiki but I got a "package deal" so they all came home. I have someone in mind for the aces mug. If she doesn't want it I might keep it around for a little while. The bird/parrot is more of a vase. I have wooden parrot and some brightly colored tikis that it will fit in well with. Front and center, the star of our show, is an Orchids of Hawaii R-3 mug.



He's in great shape. Both emerald green eyes are intact and there aren't any noticeable chips. He had some green gunk on his nose (candle wax maybe?) but that came off easily with a toothbrush and some soapy water. There are a few brown spots on the bottom of his lip but it looks more like the brown glaze used at the top and bottom so I'll just consider that some sort of tiki birthmark.



I have some other "peanut style" tiki mugs but this is my first Orchids of Hawaii one. I really like the eyes.. very cool indeed.

It's definitely been a good week for tiki stuff. :)

Tiki Cutlery & More

Friday's lunchtime trip to Goodwill proved very fruitful. I found a giant fork and spoon with tikis carved into the handles. The stickers on the back just say Philippines. I guess giant tikis have to eat with something...



Also on the shelves was a genuine Trader Vic's Aloha Coconut Mug. Very nice.



There seem to be a lot of different finishes/glazes on this mug over the years. Most of the ones I found on the interweb seems to be the darker flat finishes. I'm guessing this may be one of the later ones. A nice find indeed!

iPhone iNsantity

I took this picture out Maxwell's window on the way home yesterday. It was about 4:00PM and there were people camped out in front of the AT&T trailer in Dunwoody. All waiting until 6:00PM for Apple to unleash the iPhone.



Meanwhile my officemate was making his way to a different line over in Marietta. I think he had to wait until about6:45 to get his new lifeline. He is now the coolest person I know. Period.

Digital Watches ARE a Pretty Neat Idea

I started re-reading Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy last night (I'm done with The Curious Cook )



Here's an exceprt from the forward that pretty much sums up the latter part of a dinner conversation with coworkers last night:

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has-or rather had-a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.

This is not her story.

But it is the story of that terrible stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.

It's been a while since I've read it. I think now is a good time for a refresher (My digital watch is solar-powered and sets itself to WWVB every morning.)

.

Crescent Moon - Northlake

We went to the Northlake Mall location of Crescent Moon for dinner yesterday.



Evidently Crescent Moon has been around since 1995 down in Decatur but I guess I'm just not that good at paying attention. The one at Northlake is where the Ruby Tuesday used to be and I don't even think I'd eaten there since the late 90's. At some point it closed and then a year or so ago Crescent Moon opened its second location here. It's a diner-like atmosphere with some retro-modern stuff going on. The menu is pretty diverse with everything from breakfast to blue plate specials (I had to look up blue plate special .) Heather had the Fried Green Tomato Sandwich and I had the Tejas Burrito. Both were very good and there were very little leftovers. My only suggestion would be to add a few tortilla chips and some of the fresh salsa (which was VERY good) to the burrito plate. I have my eye on some of the breakfast skillet dishes for a return visit.

Sandra Lee is taking over the food channel now. I'm going to go watch yesterday's Busch Series race instead. Happy Sunday.

Almost makes me want to mow...

I picked up a 6-pack of Spring Heat Spiced Wheat today at Tower. I think initially I've been leery of it since it's an Anheuser-Busch product or possibly because of the silly smiley thing on the label. It was on sale (end of its limited season) for $5 today so I caved.



I had some with lunch and it's actually pretty good. It's modeled after the Belgian wheat ales like Hoegaarden. It's got a good hit of citrus and spice (coriander) and is mildly sweet. I was first exposed to this style when Celis White was still being made in Texas back in the mid to late 90's. When that was no longer available I switched to imported Hoegaarden which was made by the same brewmaster. I also like Blue Moon Belgian White (brewed by Coors) as it's easy to find and widely available. I have to say I really like the Spring Heat Spiced Wheat a bit more than the Blue Moon. It's a bit more tangy toward lemons and limes than the more orange-like Blue Moon. I'd really like it if I had just mowed the lawn... which I have not.

I'll have to try the current seasonal from A-B, Beach Bum Blonde Ale.

Father's Day Outing

We took Dad out to 5 Season Brewing for Father's Day lunch.



5 Seasons is one of the few places that isn't afraid to brew real beers that actually have distinct styles and flavors. Every time I try a beer at most brewpubs I'm disappointed at how dulled down they are so they won't stand out too much from the American standards. I always end up thinking about my last trip to 5 Seasons and how good the beer was.

Today I had the sampler which consisted of:

• Seven Sisters Münchner

• Big Blonde HefeWeizen

• Phoenix Pils

• Glenkevin "Wee Heavy" Scotch Ale

• Dodgey's Dry Irish Stout

The HefeWeizen was probably my favorite of the bunch. I always seem to like the unfiltered beers with their more substantial body and often tangy notes. The Scotch Ale is pretty heavy duty stuff and can be a bit overpowering. I also enjoyed the Irish Stout for dessert.

To absorb it all I had the Smoked Brisket Reuben that's made with homemade kraut and their own grilled rye. It'd definitely one of the best Reubens around town. I think their House-Smoked Turkey Reuben may actually edge out the Brisket one but I'd have to go back and revisit it before I could come to that conclusion. Maybe I should do that soon! :)

In the meantime Dad has a new Magellan RoadMate to figure out how to use. I kind of like GPS units. Even if you don't know where you are, the fact that this little device shows you on a map makes you feel less lost.

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Long Live Long Limb!

Dave and Danielle strike again. As if they aren't busy enough with a newborn, they find me this awesome tiki mug at a local thrift store.



He's a Paul Marshall Products Long Limb Tiki Mug. You can find more info on him here at Ooga Mooga. Paul Mashall Product produced tiki mugs in the 60's so this is a really nice find.

According to Answers.com, Paul Marshall Products got eaten by Aris Industries in 1977. See all the info here. Aris is also the same company that ended up with Members Only. Weird.

Thanks again Dave and Danielle. :)

Tiki S&P

I picked up this set of "Dolomite Salt & Pepper Shakers" at Eckerd this week. I think they were on sale for about $2.



They're from China but they're still tikis and still pretty cool.

This leads me to... what exactly is dolomite anyway? Evidently it is some sort of sedimentary carbonate rock similar to limestone. See the Wikipedia entry on dolomite for more info.

Are they guys "dolomite" for real? I doubt it. But hey they're "hand painted" and have a "glazed finish." At least that's what the box says.

BTW: I've heard that you should never put salt in shakers if you're collecting them. The salt is corrosive.

Subs in Atlanta

This is where to get a sub in North Atlanta. Baldinos.

\

Giant Jersey Subs. Just outside I-285 in Doraville.

It's kind of out of place in it's current setting but it seems to do just fine.

Get whatever sub you want. Then... two words: PEPPERONI ROLL.
(I think there's one in Marietta too, but I've never been there. Let me know if you know if you've been there.)

Overwhelmed?

Rich is.



Too many phone calls.
Too little time.

To Infinity!

Never VNC to another machine and then use Remote Desktop Connection to connect back to the machine you are using VNC from.



OK... do it if you want to.

Tybee Tiki

Leah and Amy got me this cool little guy on a recent trip to Tybee Island. They rock!



It has a little in common with an Orchids of Hawaii R-3 but it's not a direct copy of anything else out there that I know of.



It does come with directions to concoct a Deep Atlantic. That may be the cause of him holding in his tummy. I haven't tried it yet but I'll share it with you.

Deep Atlantic

1.5 oz. Vodka
1.5 oz. Rum
1 oz. Blue Curacao

Fill a long glass with crushed ice,
stir all ingredients and fill with
1 tbsp. of Sprite.

I'll post a comment when I try one. Let me know if you beat me to it.

Great British Tikis!

Dave and Danielle made a great find at a garage sale this weekend. Their amazing bargaining powers netted me a pair of tiki mugs from The Patio at the Sheraton Skyline near Heathrow.



The mugs are stamped "DAGA (c) HAWAII" on the bottom. I believe it's a Stephen Crane Associates design originally for the Kon Tiki at the Sheraton in Hawaii. Similar mugs were made by Daga Restaurant Ware Limited for other Sheraton locations that had Kon Tiki restaurants in them. I found a reference to a Kon Tiki at the Skyline Sheraton in an article from Nude Magazine. I guess eventually this turned in to "The Patio" and then perhaps maybe the "The Patio Caribe" which I can find more recent references to. However now it looks like the last of it may be just be part of the "Sky Garden and Pool Area" and all of the "tiki stuff" is gone. My best guess is that these might be from the 80's as I'm not really sure when the name changed. The crazing of the glaze on the mugs seems to indicate they have a few years on them. I'll update this post if I ever figure out any more details.

Thanks Dave and Danielle!

The Power of Two

Today was brought to you by the number two (Note that it's June 2nd too.)




This week I had a cheeseburger for lunch at Cheeseburger In Paradise. It sucked. So today I had my 2nd cheesebuger of the week at Ted's Montana Grill. I had the Vermejo burger and it was awesome. This should satisfy my "good burger" craving for at least a couple of months.

After lunch we went by Trader Joe's where among other things I picked up some Charles Shaw 2005 Shiraz. It's surprisingly drinkable for two bucks (OK... $2.50.) Sure, there are better, but I've paid more for worse. I'd probably even buy it again. Then to top it off the cashiers found two of the Tiki Bags that now seem to be harder to find in the stores.

Today's mail produced a blue bubble-wrap envelope from Robert Drasnin. Inside the envelope was a brand new CD release of Drasnin's called Voodoo II (to follow up his 1959 exotica recording of Voodoo.) Back in January I got an email from the Tiki Events Mailing List announcing that Drasnin was going to record a new album this February in Los Angles but was funding the recording out of his own pocket. For a modest up-front contribution you could help him fund the recording and get an autographed copy of the CD when it came out. Well it's here now and will be getting a lot of grantbob airtime soon.

You too can get Voodoo II at Amazon and probably somewhere else. The official Robert Drasnin website appears to be broken. Maybe it will be back some day. Until then there's a decent little bio from the first Voodoo re-release on CD from Dionysus here: Bio

Thank you Two.