"Goodnight, Burbank"

Is a web-based comedy show about what goes on behind the scenes at a local tv news broadcast. Very funny stuff, written by some people who want to be full-time comedy writers (presumably) who decided that the best way for them to develop credits is to create their own show.

http://www.goodnightburbank.com/index.shtml

And you can subscribe to a free iTunes feed!

Restaurant Recommendation -- Landry's Seafood House, El Paso, TX

We've been doing a little bit of traveling recently, and along with some exploration of local restaurants, I've accumulated a few business cards and wanted to pass along some decent places to eat. I'm going to group 'em by city, just for the heck of it.


Landry's Seafood House
6801 Gateway Blvd. West
El Paso, TX
915-779-2900

Upscale fish place with good lunches. We had a half order Oysters Rockefeller with a crab/shrimp fondue as appetizers, along with a chicken sandwich (me) and IIRC a stuffed pasta/ravioli dish (Russet) for lunch. The Oysters Rockefeller were fantastic! I had never had them until about a year ago when I saw a Good Eats episode where Alton made them and decided that I really had to try them. I had them in Phoenix at Fish Market (recommended -- their cheesy garlic bread is great!), and though I liked them there, what I had at Landry's simply blew Fish Market's away. They were simply great. The fondue was also excellent: I've never been a huge fan of cheese sauce dishes because of the propensity of people to use inferior cheeses, but this was very nice. Recommended. My sandwich was good, and it was a HUGE piece of chicken! Effectively it was 1.5 or 2 sandwiches, in fact, the poodle got some of my chicken. And Russet's meal was also very good. I'd like to go back for dinner some time: they have a Chilean Sea Bass that I really want to try, though Russet says that it is an endangered fish. I had sea bass in San Diego during ComicCon a few years ago and fell in love with it then.

Price: it's not cheap. Entres are in the $15-30 level, but the portion sizes are very generous. And with good quality food, an occasional indulgence is nice and well worth it.

Location: it's on the N side of I-10 east of the airport. Unfortunately I don't recall the exit that you'd take to double-back on. You'll see a shopping center with a Target and Mervyn's, Landry's, then a Sam's Club/Wal Mart followed by another shopping center. I'm sure Russet will chime in with the name of the second mall's exit.


Oh, almost forgot to mention: Landry's is a chain, apparently including a New Orleans location. So there might possibly be one near you.

I am at the doctor's right now

and using an unsecured access point called OB/GYN. I am SO tempted to poke around and see if they have any unsecured computers! Maybe I should be going around here and offering professional services. The signal is pretty week so I'm fairly certain it's not my doctor. One thing is cool -- my doctor is a Mac office!

What a day!

I caught a cold Sunday afternoon. I hate colds. So we took it easy. Monday it was hitting me big time so I didn't go in to work. Monday night it seemed to break, Russet said my breathing got a lot easier while I slept. Tuesday I was feeling pretty good, still stayed home, taking it easy. Tuesday night I began to really feel like crap. It moved into my lungs and nose at the same time, and not long before Russet had to head back to Cloudcroft to do some work at the observatory.

So today I go into work. I'm still feeling cruddy, but I'm not coughing (much) or sneezing (at all). Just blowing my nose a lot and making sure that I wash my hands often, also not getting too close to people. Fortunately nothing broke in my absence, in fact, one problem was actually behaving better. I wanted to see a doctor but didn't have a local one, so I pull up the list of doctors for my medical plan on the web site and start calling DO's. The first one that I call is taking new patients, but she can't see me for at least two weeks, nor can anyone else in their office. Second one I call is also taking new patients, but he's on vacation this week. There aren't a lot of osteopaths in the directory, and a few of them say that they aren't taking new patients. Fortunately I strike gold with the third -- taking new patients and not only can I get in today, I can get in in about an hour!

So I get there at 10:45 for an 11am appointment to make sure that I have time to do the new patient paperwork. In fact, I have time to do the paperwork and write four pages of a blog entry -- I don't get called back until 12:15ish. Turns out that he had an earlier patient suffering from extreme depression who took a lot of extra time.

We talk, he prescribes antibiotics, something to hopefully clear my nose and lungs, then he surprises me with an injection -- I got a steroid injection to accelerate clearing my nose, and let me tell you, it worked!

I take the scripts, make an appointment for a physical next month, and head off to Walmart to get the prescriptions filled. I wouldn't have had them done there except apparently one of the drugs isn't carried by Walgreens and KMart was not well located for my current needs. I drop off the scripts, then go to Arby's for a leisurely lunch and catch up on reading my flist. Head back to pick up the drugs, get in car to head back to work (I'm now down two hours on the day) and the car won't start.

I'm 99% sure that it's the battery. Go back into Walmart, turns out that the auto department doesn't have a jump cart, but they will lend me jumper cables: the guy tells me just to flag down the security guards in their little golf cards and they'll jump me. I pop the hood on my car and wait. Fortunately I refilled my drink at Arby's (it was almost 100f here today). Absolutely no sign of security, and no one seems interested in helping me. A good 15-20 minutes pass, I go into the store to customer service and ask them to page security to Row 2 to jump my car. No problem, they tell me. Spend another 15-20 minutes, no sign of security. Finally this guy walks up and asks if I need a jump.

Thus the car gets started, I drive across the freeway to Sears and get a new battery. Total time at Sears for a battery, plus buying a new set of jumper cables (mine were trashed by my own stupidty) and a new set of wiper blades (found out that my driver's side needs 21" blades, the passenger side 18"): less than 20 minutes.

Get back to city hall at 3:30. I'd been gone for FIVE FREAKIN' HOURS. There's no way that I could make up four hours today, especially with some of the crap I was experiencing with a vendor's web site. It was amazing -- they had a "click here to start a problem report via email" and clicking there caused your browser to spontaneously abort. It didn't matter if it was IE or Firefox, it was GONE. So they received a nastygram about that!


So now I'm home, drugged, fed, and feeling better. I put in an hour extra, I'll have the other three hours covered by the weekend. Total out of pocket for doctor, meds, battery, and automotive miscellany? About $200. I'm VERY glad that I paid off my credit card last month!