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Interstate-80 bridge across the Mississippi linking Illinois and Iowa.

This was taken on the Illinois side, from the Illinois Welcome Center.

Zz.

Guy Fieri's Time Square Restaurant Got Roasted By NY Times

I don't read many restaurant reviews. In fact, I don't recall when I last read one. But this one is a hoot and a half!

Now, I do love Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" on the Food Network. So when I came across a review of Fieri's new restaurant in NY City's Time Square called "Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar", I just had to read it. And man, was this restaurant got skewered big time!

Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights) in the review:

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri, would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered?

Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?

At your five Johnny Garlic’s restaurants in California, if servers arrive with main courses and find that the appetizers haven’t been cleared yet, do they try to find space for the new plates next to the dirty ones? Or does that just happen in Times Square, where people are used to crowding?{ZapperZ: This, btw, is one of my big pet peeves when dining out}

How did Louisiana’s blackened, Cajun-spiced treatment turn into the ghostly nubs of unblackened, unspiced white meat in your Cajun Chicken Alfredo?

By the way, would you let our server know that when we asked for chai, he brought us a cup of hot water?

Tell me, though, why does your kitchen sabotage even its more appealing main courses with ruinous sides and sauces? Why stifle a pretty good bison meatloaf in a sugary brown glaze with no undertow of acid or spice? Why send a serviceable herb-stuffed rotisserie chicken to the table in the company of your insipid Rice-a-Roni variant?

Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?

Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them?

Holy canolli, Batman! Those are awful reviews!

I  know! Maybe Guy could call Robert Irvine and do a Restaurant Impossible episode on his new restaurant! It sounds as if the restaurant needs an overhaul on the food and the service. Food Network will have a double-whammy for an episode since it will involve two of its stars!

Not gonna happen!

Zz.

C'mon, Knock Me Out, I Dare Ya!

There's poetic justice in something like this, when one is arrogant enough to leave oneself open.

This boxer was taunting his opponent to hit him and letting his guard down. He got what he asked for. He got hit and knocked unconscious!



Would love to hear what he had to say when they revived him him.

Zz.

3 Years In The House In The Suburbs

I mentioned a few years ago of us moving out of the city and buying a house in the suburbs. It's amazing how time flies. Today is the 3rd Anniversary of the closing on our house. And it has been an amazing experience so far. We lucked out, and in more ways than one. We have am amazing neighborhood, amazing set of neighbors that we have grown very close to, and a location that does not make me miss the city that much, other than the occasional cravings for a very good Vietnamese food on Argyle street.

But what has been amazing about our home is that it has become a place where we entertain our friends on a regular basis. Since the first day we moved in, the house has been a meeting place, a party place, etc. for our friends. And that's the way we intended it to be. We specifically looked for a place with enough room to entertain, and when we got the house, we redid the patio so that it becomes an extension to our house for outdoor entertainment. All of those have come a reality.

The smiles, the laughters, the tears, the conversations, and the sharing of each other's company have turned our house into a home we love. As we moved into our 4th year of owning this house, I wouldn't have done it any other way.

Zz.

Way Cool, Dad!

This is an amazing thing that a Dad did. He took a photo of his son each day throughout the 21 years of the boy's life, and have compiled it into this 6-minute video. An amazing dedication not only to snapping all those photos, but also to do this compilation. As someone who also does video editing, I can tell you that this isn't trivial.



Zz.

Oh, He Missed A Spot!

So you spray-tan yourself all over your body, but you missed really the most obvious spot!

It does look rather odd, even comical.

It turns out that this isn't that uncommon, as seen in this video.



I guess many of them just don't want to spray their faces. But still, when you have that deep of a tan, and your face/head is pale while, it looks VERY strange!

Zz.

Random Picture

30,000 feet above somewhere.

Zz.

Hey Floridians, Stop Crashing Into Post Offices!

So the US Post Office is giving out some guidelines to Floridians so that they stop crashing into post offices in that state. And no, I'm not pulling your leg!

Local ABC affiliate WWSB7 reports that the tips include, "Avoid distracted driving; Proceed slowly and carefully when pulling in, and backing out, of parking spaces; Visibly check to see whether your foot is on the gas pedal or the brake pedal," and "Visibly check to see if the vehicle is in Park, Reverse or Drive."

It appears that many of our geriatric drivers in that state have been crashing their vehicles into post offices!

Zz.

You Can't Park Here!

We were walking around the grounds around the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher earlier this spring, when I saw this sign.

I'd say that the sign was quite effective. No one has parked there in a very, very long time! :)

Zz.

Debunking On Using Cell Phones While Driving

I mentioned earlier on the dangers of using cell phones while driving. Here's a video that debunks the myth that talking on cell phones while driving is no different than talking to fell passengers while driving.




Zz.

Hungry Jack syrup truck spills onto Buttermilk Pike

Some time, random fate has a sense of humor.

A highway truck accident never sounded so delicious. A semitrailer hauling Hungry Jack pancake syrup collided with a highway median at the Buttermilk Pike overpass in northern Kentucky, causing the truckload of syrup to spill all over the highway.

And no, as the news article stated at the very end, they didn't mop up the syrup with pancakes.

Zz.

Men Are Dirtier Than Women

OK, show of hands for those who are surprised by this revelation!

A new study of the workplace shows that men tend to be dirtier than women.

In a new study, researchers took swabs of a variety of office equipment in New York, San Francisco, and Tucson. They found more than 500 types of bacteria, most of which normally live on our skin or in our nasal, oral, and intestinal cavities. Chairs and phones accumulated the most bacteria, followed by desktops, keyboards, and computer mice. In a few cases, hardy microbes commonly found in hot springs and volcanic islands also appeared in the mix, perhaps tracked into the office following a vacation to St. Lucia or Yellowstone. New York and San Francisco's bacterial diversity was virtually identical despite their nearly 4700-kilometer divide, while Tucson's microbes were more variable and tended to be heavy on desert soil bacteria in addition to the human-derived species. San Francisco offices were the least contaminated. And while the offices of men and women had the same types of species, women's offices had on average 10% to 20% fewer of them. 

Zz.

Couple Accidentally Shot At Firearms Safety Class

I tell ya, you can't make these things up!

The Bedford County Sheriff's Office tells media outlets that Michael L. Deel shot himself in the hand with a .45-caliber handgun. The bullet also struck his wife, Michelle, in the leg as she was sitting beside him.

The incident occurred Saturday during a firearms safety class at a residence. The instructor, Thomas Starke, told police he'd left the room and then heard a shot.

Zz.

Apple Stores Can Be A Hazard To Your Nose

An elderly woman is suing apple for $1 million because she broke her nose when she accidentally walked into the clear Apple glass door.

However, Paswall's attorney claims that it's simply far too hard to see Apple's sleekness. Derek T. Smith was quoted by CBS News York as saying: "Apple wants to be cool and modern and have the type of architecture that would appeal to the tech crowd, but on the other hand, they have to appreciate the danger that this high-tech modern architecture poses to some people."

In most countries, this would have been thrown out and laughed at. But in the litigious US of A, if someone can sue and win because she got burnt due to a very hot coffee, anything can happen.

Zz.

Fight Back Against Text Spamming

I hate spams, and I hate unsolicited phone calls, even when these are illegal in many countries.

The problem with text-spamming to mobile phones is that till now, there's not a whole lot one can do to fight back. If your phone service has a way to block numbers, that's wonderful. But many don't. And I'm not the one who will just sit there and do nothing.

So I'm pleased when I read this article that there's now a way for you to at least do something to combat this problem. The wireless carriers are now banding together to compile problem number that, hopefully, will make them go after these spammers.

So here's what you should do:

1. When you receive a text spam from an actual phone number (rather than a shortcode), forward it to "7726" (which spells SPAM).
2. When your carrier responds, reply with the 10-digit phone number of the spammer.
3. You will then get a text message acknowledging your complaint.

Now, what they do with that, who knows. But at least you have done all you can. One would hope that if enough people complain about that same spam and from the same phone number, the carriers will take action.

If you get a text spam from a shortcode, the article says that you should reply to it with a "STOP" message. Supposedly, the use of shortcodes is tightly regulated and people don't want to lose that. Still, what if you still get spam from that shortcode number? The article doesn't tell you what to do then, or who to complain to.

In any case, I've just reported my first text spam, and interestingly enough, it was the same type of text spam that was reported in the article, i.e. receiving a gift card from Walmart (yeah, right!). The process went exact as described above, and in the article, except T-Mobile (unlike Verizon as in the article) doesn't tell you how to block certain phone numbers.

Zz.

I Love My New iPad

I mentioned earlier that we ordered the new iPads the day it was announced. We were lucky because, after battling with the Apple's webpage that kept crashing, we were in the group that got the iPad to be delivered right on the day of its released, which was last Friday. Interestingly enough, the iPads were shipped from China, passed through Alaska, and then got to Louisville, KY this past Sunday and sat there till they got delivered on Friday (yes, we were tracking them several times a day each day).

In any case, we got it last Friday, and I've been playing with it ever since. I've been loading it with apps, movies, and other stuff. Unfortunately, since I have an Android phone, I have to get all the apps that I had on the phone and upload the same ones on the iPad from the Apps store. Luckily, there weren't that many that I want to have on both devices.

So how is the new iPad? In a word, stunning. We are often seduced by look-and-feel, and the iPad certainly is a seducer to the extreme. The graphics is jaw-dropping, and it certainly feels very fast. I'm still trying to get used to the iOS operating system, and knew fully well that I don't have quite the access to the file structure the way I can with the Android OS. That's fine.

I need to do my own test on how I can transfer photos from my digital camera to the iPad, edit it, reduce its size, and then post the photos on my blog. So you may see a few stray postings on here that makes no sense in the next few weeks. That's just me testing out certain things from the iPad.

BTW, setting up gmail contacts isn't as straightforward on the iPad (I'm guessing that's the same way with iPhones). While I could import contacts from Yahoo easily, the iPad makes you do quite a bit more to do the same with the gmail contacts. I guess when you are a competitor, you try to make it as difficult as you can. Still, we managed to do that after looking on the web on ways to do it. Now I have both my yahoo and gmail email, and contacts/calendar on my iPad.

Everything's right with the world....

Zz.

We Ordered The New iPads!

The Apple webpage to buy all these things crashed over and over again. I'm sure a gazillion people were trying to do the same thing that we've been trying. But finally, we got ourselves an order for 2 of the new iPad3, or iPad HD, or whatever they're calling this one.

This will be our first iPads, not counting the first iPad we bought as a gift for someone. Supposedly, it will be delivered on March 16. I can't wait.

Zz.

New iPad to Be Announced Today?

All the rumors point to the new iPad to be announced today.

I've always wanted one. But I waited through the first iPad, and didn't go for the 2nd. Now I'm ready to buy one and am eagerly waiting for the next generation model. So as soon as it is announced today, I'm putting in an order!

This will produce an interesting mix. I have an android phone (after dropping my Blackberry), and will have an iOS tablet. I know I will have to buy/download again all the apps that I had obtained from the Android market for my phone, and get the same ones for the iPad.

Now, if only Apple would release an iPhone for T-Mobile....

Zz.

Man Has Heart Attack at "Heart Attack Grill"

As the story said, this is almost too bizarre to be true, but it is.

A man suffered a heart attack while eating at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas. Not only that, he had it after eating the "triple bypass burger"!

Millions of Americans watch what they eat. But one Las Vegas man has painfully discovered that where you eat can have a big impact on your health as well. In a story almost too bizarre to be true, a man suffered a heart attack after eating a "triple bypass burger" at the Heart Attack Grill in downtown Las Vegas, local affiliate Fox5 reports.

As comically tragic as that may sound, no one can sue the restaurant for not issuing fair warning. Its website proudly proclaims the menu offers, "Taste Worth Dying For!" (Fortunately, the man in question survived his attack.)

The good news is that this man is recovering. But now, will the notoriety of actually having someone get what they restaurant advertised will entice even more customers to it? After all, they are giving you what they promised!

Zz.

iPad2 at Goodwill For $65

And no, before you make a beeline to your nearest Goodwill store, this was a fluke, a needle in a haystack, a once-in-a-lifetime find.

A man found a brand new 32 GB iPad2, still in the box, on sale at a Goodwill store for, get this, $65!

And this is a legit product too, not one of those "wooden iPad" either.

Good for him!

Zz.

Unbelievable Volleyball Rally

Holy cow! I got tired just from watching it!




The sad part at the end was that, most of the crowd were cheering/clapping, but they were still stuck to their seats! If this were in the US or Europe, the crowd would have been on their feet giving these players standing ovations. What does it take for the Chinese fans to give a standing ovation? Someone has to die or something?

Zz.