Week in Review (part 1)

Where shall I begin? Well, first is that I got fired from hosting karaoke @ Shanahan's. Apparently they're changing flags from a Holiday Inn to a Radisson and as a result their entertainment budget was cut dramatically...only $300/month. Which means they can't afford us anymore every week. All available funds are headed towards other aspects to help covert the hotel by June.

(which btw I hate cuz Radissons aren't as plentiful as holiday inns which seriously cuts down on our available vacation spots with discounted hotel stays)

Ultimately my "boss" is happy about the cancellation. He was always calling me with some concern or another. And he always said how he hated working for the holiday inn anyway cuz he had bad experiences with the one in Southgate. And altho I'm going to miss the extra monies it gave us, I'm happy we aren't there anymore either. It was one big headache for me to hear how much of a headache it was for him. So I have my Tuesdays back! YAY!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday was a hugely busy day. We went to the North American International Auto Show with Joel around 11 am for a couple hours. Ran into a friend that works sound for a local radio station. Joel got on the radio too. He had on his "Indiana Jones" hat so they started talking to him. He was so awesome. Just chit-chatting with them They talked to him about hybrids (since Joel has a Prius) and mentioned that someone they knew had a HOnda Insight (i hope I'm remembering this correctly) but had to trade it in cuz they have a fmaily and they just can't fit the kids in comfortably. Joel suggested perhaps they should just strap the kids to the top of the car....and the radio guys didn't quite know how to react to that one. It was hilarious!!!

The main reason we went to the Auto Show was to see the project that Joel is currently working on. The battery for the new GM Volt (which is an all electric concept car ... very cool!). The battery is going to be designed to run the entire length of the chassis.

We also saw a finished battery project in the Saturn Hybrid

Joel took a pic of him next to the battery pack but I haven't received his pics yet (*ahem*)

Of course we checked out the awesome cars...Lamborghini, Ferrarri, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, Maserati, and the cool Bond BMW Z4 roadster. My favorite was the Rolls Royce 2008 Phantom with the brushed aluminum hood:

Click here for more hi-res pics

My favorite was the smartcar of course...which is NOT a play toy for Kohana and does NOT come with it's own Hot wheels track :p~ But besides the smartcar was the minicooper! it's SO CUTE! I got to sit in one and I loved it! And I believe they are slightly bigger this year. Joel got a pic of me in the car which I'll share once I get it.

After the Auto Show we came back home, Kevin went to work and Joel and I went out to lunch/dinner. We originially wanted Indian, but they closed 15 minutes before we got there, so we opted for the chinese buffet complete with sushi! YUM!

We spent a good amount of time there just chatting etc. He's been on a new diet prescribed by his physician and has lost 50lbs since October. I'm so impressed with him.

But I've already spent too much time on the puter. I have stuff I need to get done. So look for part 2 coming soon which includes joel's wedding plans, Saturday @ Somewhere and my take on the playoffs and upcoming Superbowl)

The Car I Want!!!!

I saw it live and in person at the North American Auto Show! It's the cutest car ever! It's scheduled to be introduced in the states by 2008! I am so getting one! I LOVE IT!!!!

Article on the smartcar

I've been faithful to JazBloPoMo

But I forgot to copy my blogs over here on blogger from myspace. So I just did and changed up the dates to reflect when I actually posted them. Not that it matters to anyone but me.

Meesa Haten Jar Jar Binks!

But Meesa LOVEN my kitties!!!!

Lindsey Lohan's Manifesto (courtesy of gofugyourself.com)

GoFugYourself.com

(click on the pages to see them bigger)

Tripre Britz!

So, Kevin and I went out last night to our local watering hole for a little destressing after his long day and a welcome break from my crocheting (which, btw, I could be done w/ the mom in law afghan sometime today ... a day ahead of schedule! I'm so excited!) It's nothing really exciting. Our friend Lady J was there playing megatouch as usual and CNN with really bad closed captioning was on the boob tube (i mean seriously! ah trossity? LEARN TO SPELL PEOPLE!!!!)

Lady J invited me over to play some trivia on the megatouch. We stuck with the music category. It's what we know best, plus it has a tasty riff that plays when you choose it. She's gonna learn and include on her first album ^_^

That was when we learned the megatouch at the Toy Box is haunted/psychic/just plain freaky! First was when we finally guessed that Harry Wayne casey was teh leader of KC and the Sunshine Band I said something like "oh! Casey...KC...I get it!" and that's when the damn megatouch put the SAME EXACT WORDS on the screen when explaining the correct answer. Okay...I kinda let that one slide seeing as the megatouch is kinda sarcastic and dumbs things down for you sometimes cuz it knows the majority of people playing are missing mega brain cells.

So a little white later a question comes up about the Champs somg "Tequila" so Lady J shares that The first time she went out and did karaoke with a group of friends they practically forced her to pick a song and sing, so she did. "Tequila" Her friends were so pissed but hey! they didn't have any stipulations! So I made a comment that she should have done like this guy did once at the White Horse when I was hosting. He picked a Milli Vanilli song and asked me to sing it and he just lip-synched. It was classic.

No sooner do the words come out of my mouth than a question on the megatouch pops up about ... yep ... Milli Vanilli. Okay. A little more freaky there.

Eventually I look up and the clock is past midnight so I say "oh. Today is the anniversary of John Lennon's death." and we get a little somber. About 2 questions later the megatouch asks us which famous apartment building did John Lennon get shot in front of. (The Dakota in case you don't know ... which if you don't WHY am i friends with you?). So now we're really freaked. And that's when we find out the jukebox is in cahoots with the megatouch. You know how when nobody plays the jukebox for awhile it will automatically kick a song out to try and tempt you to play? Well, as soon as we answer the question about John Lennon, a Beatles song starts playing on the jukebox!!!!

yep. Lady J, Kevin and I were sufficiently spooked after that. That megatouch is not for the faint of heart.

My brain is fog

This JazBloPoMo is a little harder than I thought. you know, usually I have so many ideas for stuff to blog I end up overloading and not blogging anything...but right now I have no ideas at all. Not a one.

And that's because my brain is currently being suffocated with crochet patterns and movies on satellite. I'm so close to being done with my mother in law's afghan I can taste it...which means I just move onto another pattern and then another until come January 1st I prolly won't want to hold a crochet hook again for at LEAST a month!

oh! We did try out a new Mexican restaurant in Redford last night before we went to see Ava. It's called Cinco de Mayo on 5 mile just east of Beech Daly. They just opened last week (or maybe 2 weeks ago...I'm not sure). Anyway, a friend said she went for the lunch buffet and the menu had stuff she didn't recognize on it, including menudo (the soup, not the boy band). This made me very excited with the possibility that they would have barbacoa and other Mexican delicacies you can't get in the more "americanized" Mexican places.

So we walked in last night all excited. I already knew I was gonna order the menudo. It's my test of how good a Mexican restaurant actually is. If a place can make that good, they can make anything.

For the uninitiated, Menudo is a soup made with beef tripe (tripas), chili peppers, garlic and hominy. Beef tripe is the lining on a cow's stomach. You must boil the tripas for at least a couple hours in order to cook them and remove any impurities (Kinda like chitlins). You then take it and put it in a pot along with the peppers, spices and hominy and cook for another hour or so. It is served with diced onions, mexican oregano and lime wedges on the side which allows you to garnish as you please. I personally like alot of onions and lime juice and just a smattering of the oregano. It's considered a hangover cure and is most often served at restaurants on Sundays. Some of my fondest memories are of going with my family to a bar in Delrey called "Soria's" and having Soria's homemade menudo each Sunday after church.

So in we walk and have the nicest server. He brought us drinks (i had coke, Kevin had non alcoholic Sangria. The Sangria was YUM!) and chips and salsa while we looked over the menu. I was a tad disappointed that the "caliente" salsa wasn't caliente at all ... but then I have a less tender palate than the normal Redford customer. It had a nice taste tho. and the tiniest hint of heat at the end.

In looking over the menu, it was pretty basic. They had a couple of ceviches as well as botanas. A Botana is kinda like nachos but a thousand times better. There used to be a mexican place on Northline (next to where Subi's is now) that had the best botanas. I haven't had one in years. Everything was listed in spanish but explained in english underneath (i.e. "tostadas de camarrones" ... a deep fried tortilla covered with sauteed shirmp, lettuce and tomatoes) which explains why my friend didn't recognize things on the menu. They did have a yummy dessert called "arroz com leche" which is basically a rice pudding with raisins. It is yummy goodness belueve me. Next time we go there I'm ordering a backwards dinner and having dessert first.

we ordered the Queso Fundido as an appetizer, which was melty muenster cheese covered with fried chorizo and sliced poblano peppers and served with tortilla. Kinda a mexican version on saganaki without the tableside fire. It was delicious.

I also tasted their mole sauce. Mole is a sauce made with mexican chocolate and chili peppers. Usually served on chicken. I've never had mole and figured it was a safe time to try it. It wasn't bad. I think I could handle it. Normally I don't like sweet with my savory (i.e. cherries on chicken salad) but I like peanut butter chicken, so I'm willing to someday give it a shot.

In the end I got the menudo like I planned and Kevin got the enchiladas mexicanas with shredded beef. When the giant bowl of menudo finally got to our table I was so excited. And when I tasted it I was in heaven! The only complaint I had was they didn't put hominy in it and I love hominy, but there was so much tripe in there i didn't miss it for long. It was so spicy! And the meat in it was cooked to perfection. It wasn't chewy or rubbery (which some places have a tendency to do). I kept sending my compliments to the kitchen it was so good. Kevin liked his enchiladas too.

In the end I would recommend it to anyone looking for a new mexican place to try. Get adventurous. Try the menudo. Or at least a botana and some chicken mole. Next time we go that's what we're having, and some margaritas or perhaps a bottle of my favorite mexican beer, Carta Blanca, to wash it all down with.