When Do We Get to Eat It?

Sliders (apparently, mini-hamburgers of higher quality than Krystal or White Castle)

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Sorry for not posting much lately, but I wanted to tell everyone about one of the highlights of my week.

A friend of mine just started a food tour business here in Athens and I had an opportunity to be a part of one of the first tours this past Sunday. Athens Food Tours currently runs several different tours (downtown, Five Points, and Boulevard) and if they all go as well as Sunday's Five Points Tour, I have little doubt the new venture will be a success.

First of all, I think it is important to explain what a food tour is (owner and tour guide Mary Charles Jordan had to explain it to me too). Basically, your guide sets up a three-hour tour of about six or eight restaurants in the area of your choice and takes you to each at a relaxing pace, educating you (along with the restaurant owners and employees) about the process and history behind each.

More important to me than the pace or the educational aspect is the food. I love good food and lots of it. So, I was very interested to see how much food there would be and how good it was. With stops ranging from casual ethnic to elite Zagat-rated restaurants, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.

Tours may vary, but my tour included Five and Ten, Kelly's Jamaican, Cali and Tito's, YourPie, The Royal Peasant, and Jittery Joe's. Every bit of food was delicious and our tour of ten people left food on the table at every stop. There was way more than enough on Sunday's Five Points tour and I understand the downtown tour Saturday was the same. Also worth noting is that some restaurants provided beer and wine samples. You also had time to purchase your own beverages at each stop if you desired.

I'd also emphasize that the entire experience was as unique and enjoyable as anything I've done in this town in a long time. Even though I have eaten at all of the restaurants on my tour before, I had an opportunity to try things at each restaurant that I probably would have never ordered on my own. In three hours, I ate a cookie, bleu cheese bacon chips, one and a half sliders, french fries, pumpkin seed chili chocolate, sea salt chocolate, a couple pieces of different specialty pizzas, jerk pork, jerk chicken, insanely sweet cornbread, spicy squash, a Jamaican beef patty, a chicken patty, salmon, beef empanadas, vegetable empanadas, sweet plantains, fried plantains, tuna tartare, and a little lobster bisque. I also tried a few different coffees and a banana shake.

I know I probably left off an item of food or three and didn't do any of them justice, but suffice it to say that I was stuffed and had a blast. What better way to spend a spring afternoon than learning about local restaurants, trying new food, and meeting new people? I had a few friends on the tour, but I also enjoyed meeting others that shared my passion for gorging oneself on awesome food. Mary Charles also did an impressive job balancing roles as tour guide and social coordinator. In all honesty, when the tour was over, I only wished I had more room to keep eating with old and new friends.

Visit the website at http://www.athensfoodtours.com/ and check out their three main tours and specialty tours. Get a friend or two on board for something different and schedule a tour for yourself today. Well worth it.

G-Day, Nukes, and...More Braves

I don't know about you, but this is more likely to prevent me from committing a chemical or biological attack than a smile and a handshake from everyone's favorite beer summit organizer.

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Been a while since a new post, so I figured I should post something. What is new the last few days? G-Day answered few questions for me about the Dawgs, but I was going on no sleep (even took a nap during halftime). Not sure any of the quarterbacks made a clear statement, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Seemed fairly open to me though.

In other news, our president has decided to dare our enemies to compete with our own spending to see which can be the first to secure our ultimate demise. Our fearless leader pledged not to respond to our enemies with nuclear weapons if they attack us with chemical or biological weapons. That's reassuring. "Pretty please don't hit us, but if you do, we won't hit back any harder than you hit us. Pinky-swear." His courage is truly inspiring. Maybe now everyone will like us. I, for one, feel safer already.

Issues of national security are different than NFL salary caps. As a sovereign and free nation, we are not obligated to play on a level playing field with people that want to kill us and destroy our way of life. Being able to defend yourself better than your enemies is not anything about which to feel guilty or ashamed. The threat of deadly force keeps most would-be attackers at bay. No reason to embolden those that (until now) were at least a little concerned about a nuclear response. Oh well.

As far as I can tell, this has been a non-issue in American politics for quite some time, particularly since 9/11. Why such an agreement would ever be considered post-9/11 is beyond me, much less as Iran and North Korea do everything they can to proliferate nuclear weapons. I can see Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rushing to their Commodore 64s to send Facebook Friend Requests to President Obama immediately upon hearing of the super-nice American's gesture of goodwill and idiocy.

Seriously, if there are people out there willing to kill themselves flying airplanes into buildings, there are even more people out there willing to attack us if we tell them we won't fight back too hard. "You mean, not only do I not have to kill myself to attack America, but my family, friends, and countrymen will not be put in any serious danger as a result of my actions? Sweet! Honey, where did you put the hydrogen cyanide?"

Anyway, now to something really serious...

Not much momentum behind my petition idea, but thanks to all of you that at least read it and mocked me. With that in mind, I may come back to occasional updates throughout the season. It is worth noting that the Braves are now 2-0 with me and 1-4 without me. Jason Heyward: .375 average with me and .222 without me. Just saying.

Enough Already

I promise this blog will not always be about the Braves, but now I'm seriously starting to get worried. I knew the Braves and Heyward were unstoppable with me around, but I had no idea they would be so completely helpless without me. The Braves are now 0-2 without me and Jason Heyward is still batting .000 (0 for 9 with 5 strikeouts...4 of which came tonight) without me.

Again, compare those stats with the 2-0 start the Braves had with me in attendance and Jason Heyward's .375 average, homer, 2 runs, and 5 RBI. Since I last attended a Braves game, their winning percentage has been chopped in half and Heyward's season average has tumbled almost 200 points to .176. The evidence is irrefutable. It was all fun and games for a while, but this is getting worse by the second. Now is the time for action.

I think it's time to start a petition. If you care about the Braves' and/or Jason Heyward's success this season, please consider the comments section below your opportunity to sign a petition demanding that the Braves and/or Jason Heyward pay me to attend games. I won't even demand much in contract negotiations because I just care that much about what is at stake. I personally can't think of a more worthy cause.

Think I'm crazy? Think the Braves are above paying a good luck charm to attend games? Then you obviously don't remember this guy:

Chief Noc-A-Homa

I won't even require a teepee.

I Wish I Could Say I Was Wrong...

Braves General Manager Frank Wren

But I wasn't.

Braves record without me in attendance: 0-1.

Jason Heyward's statistics without me in attendance: .000 batting average (0-4 with a strikeout and 2 runners left on base), 0 home runs, 0 runs, and 0 RBI.

Mr. Wren, I'll be eagerly awaiting your offer.

More Good News!

Saddened by the quality of my Jason Heyward photo, my good friend Mark Reeves donated the following photo. This one was taken by Mark during Heyward's follow-through on the actual home run swing. Though taken only seconds apart, for some reason, mine looks like it was taken in the 1970s. Weird.

In other news, I bloodied a little kid's nose at Wal-Mart a little while ago. At least that's how her mother viewed it when her unsupervised four-year-old ran full-speed (while not looking where she was going) into my right hand that was unfortunately carrying a jar of On the Border Medium Salsa (which I've since learned isn't very good).

Of course, I immediately asked if the child was okay and apologized (though I maintain it was not my fault), but both mother and father did not see any reason to dignify me with a response of any sort. In fact, rather than respond to me, they scolded the child for being reckless and not watching where she was going. I even apologized a second time and was ignored again.

Only when I continued my shopping for a few seconds and a little blood dripped out of the child's nose was I significant enough to engage in conversation. Mother-of-the-Year told another shopper to get my attention and proceeded to tell me that I "made a mistake and busted her daughter's nose."

Needless to say, I resisted the urge to point out the flaws in her logic and apologized a third time. Even so, I couldn't help but wonder what this fine citizen expected me to say or do that I had not already done. Why was it the child's fault until they saw blood? Why wasn't I worth acknowledging (or blaming) until they saw blood? Why am I still writing about this?

The only thing I can figure is that for at least a moment, this lady saw dollar signs pouring out of her daughter's nose. Fortunately, she dropped it after my third apology and the dollar signs quit flowing pretty quickly. Maybe I'm a bad person and am assuming the worst in others, but I'm afraid that paranoia is the undoubted product of our over-litigious society. Thank you, trial lawyers.

By the way, if you have read this far, you are a true friend.

Good News!

Thanks to me, the Braves are off to a blazing start. They are now 2-0 with me in attendance in 2010. That puts them on pace for 162 wins, which would almost certainly have them in the hunt for the wild card, if not the division crown.

In related news, with me in attendance, rookie phenom Jason Heyward is now batting .375 with a homer, a double, 2 runs, and 5 RBI. Thanks mainly to my being in the building, Mr. Heyward is now on pace for a batting title, 81 homers, 81 doubles, 162 runs, and 405 RBI. You're welcome, kid.

The Braves might want to look into paying me to come to games. I probably won't make it tonight, so good luck, fellas. You're probably going to need it.

P.S. These pictures are from opening day. The second is a high resolution picture of Heyward's first Major League at-bat, just seconds before he blasted Carlos Zambrano's "pitch" over the right field wall. Yeah, my camera rocks.

Thank God for Baseball

It has been a long two or three months. Early January to early April is easily the most mind-numbing stretch of the sports year to me. I love football, particularly Georgia football, with a fairly unhealthy passion and imagine I always will. Sure, there are the NFL playoffs in January and early February, but it isn't the same. The best version of football is over and the inevitable post-Super Bowl vacuum looms over the entire professional postseason if your team isn't involved and you don't care for hockey or basketball.

I love baseball a little less passionately, but with a nostalgia for simpler, happier days (in a broad sense and on a personal level). At its best, it is a tradition-rich game that can unite people of all ages. At its worst (when the Braves and your fantasy team are terrible), it is something to get you to next football season.

Still, that stretch without either sport has always been a challenge for me. Those few months, while probably being among my more productive every year, are a sporting void that was better filled this year than most for only two reasons:

1. I remembered to complete a bracket for a sport I largely don't care about anymore.

2. I took a passing interest in and remembered to watch a handful of silly games played in snow and on ice.

Unfortunately, the second of those crutches only comes around once every four years. Though, if it came around more often, I would probably be far less entertained by the passion Canadians have for Gigantic Shuffleboard-On-Ice (also known as "curling"). If you followed the Winter Olympics at all, you have probably already made fun of curling or witnessed others doing so. I realize this is not a novel concept and it was not to be the focus of this post, so if you are aware of curling and the subject is no longer amusing to you, you probably should skip the next paragraph. I personally can't get enough curling mockery.

If you are unfamiliar with this Winter Olympic nail-biter, see photo above. I'd also highly recommend a YouTube search for curling. Unintentional comedy gold. Google image searches also yield many similarly priceless gems. Yes, that Canadian woman is shouting her enormous shuffleboard puck to victory and yes, her teammates are sweeping in front of it. And yes, people really win medals at the Winter Olympics for this. And yes, Canadians are apparently bonkers for this "sport." But enough about curling.

The point of this post was supposed to be one of joy and excitement over a new season of a great sport. There are reasons to hope as a Braves fan. One of them crushed a homer in his first Major League at-bat Monday. Fathers and sons will bond and the world will be a better place. But perhaps most importantly, there is something for me to watch besides the news and old Seinfeld re-runs (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Baseball is back, so I don't have to avoid Sportscenter for fear of NBA or NHL highlight-induced narcolepsy. No longer can ESPN forcefeed me women's sports and soccer as part of some ideological crusade for diversity, multi-culturalism, or political correctness. After three excruciating months, I have a sport to follow that I enjoy, understand, and watch by choice.

Not that there are not redeeming aspects of other sports played primarily in other cultures. Not that women shouldn't play sports and strive for greatness in them. I have actually gained a new respect for other sports and female athletes during this dark time that I call "The 2010 Not-Football-or-Baseball Season." I am just thrilled that a real, honest-to-goodness sport--played by men...in America...for generations--has begun a new season. In all seriousness, thank you, God.

Things I should be doing instead of blogging...

So, as you can see, I started a blog. I'm still not really sure what it will be about, but here it is. While I finally find myself with a little free time, I can't help but think of all the things I should be doing instead of blogging right now. For example:

Working on an article that is due in 3 hours
Updating my resume
Paying bills
Cleaning and organizing my house
Selling stuff on ebay
Checking my fantasy baseball lineups
Medicating my cat
Checking on my friend's cat
Getting rid of my cat
Getting rid of my friend's cat
Mailing back a couple of Netflix movies
Going to the gym
Canceling my Netflix subscription
Canceling my gym membership

You see, even with relatively free time, I have plenty I should be doing. And of course, I choose now to find a new distraction. Thanks a lot, internet.