Hats

This is a picture of my grandfather and me last weekend. We have some hats on.

I spent 40 bucks on a vintage pork pie at Puttin' On the Ritz, the decidedly old-school vintage store in Eugene that's been around since the early 90s. It was worth it because now I have three rad hats. In fact, along with being bloody exhausted and not getting to read for fun, the thing I don't like about biking to work is that I don't get to sport a dapper hat every day.

And my hats: they are dapper.

Food Carts I Have Known

The big thing in Portland w/r/t* food is the food cart phenomenon. There are tons of those guys, packed with mostly really great food for very little money. A few notes:

1. Until recently, my favorite was Creme de la Creme, a French bistro cart in the pod by our apartment (the pod is at Belmont and about SE 44th.) Croque madames, onion tarts, etc., with amazing salads with amazing vinaigrette. Unfortunately, they started copping some attitude ("best French restaurant in Portland," per Yelp) and they now charge a 50 cent to-go fee, which is a big what-the-fuck since they're a bloody FOOD CART and the whole POINT is that you get it to go. They also charge too much: 8 bucks a meal is 2 - 3 bucks more than I want to spend at a food cart. Still tastes good, anyway.
2. Thai! I always go to Thai Sky at the square-block-big pod at 4th and Oak, a block from my job. It's in direct competition with two other Thai carts at the same pod, so they're all locked in a "lunch = 5 dollars, that's it" kind of price war. The Pad Khee Mao is just divine. I have yet to get anything else, because why bother?
3. There are lots of other really good food carts! I already ran out of literary steam, however, as it is 9pm on a work night and B and I polished off some booze and played with Plan C.

Mostly I just bring peanut butter sandwiches to work, but boy do I count down the days in between Pad Khee Mao days. There are six of them.

* "With regard to" - funny prickish abbreviation I got from David Foster Wallace, essays by which I am perusing on days where I don't ride "my" bike but instead take the bus.

The Deadly Spear-Hand to the Throat

Ha! What the heck am I on about?!

1. Trying out Chrome instead of Firefox, at least in Windows. Firefox has been dragging ass on my laptop, and I'm weirded out by the whole direct jump from 4.x to 5.x in the course of a month or whatever it was...
2. I really need to get better about taking pictures and videos. Plan C is adorable. Portland is beautiful. My friends are stunningly good-looking. The world needs to see these things.
3. Hostin' the in-laws this weekend. Yesterday I basically sat around with my father in-law and drank and talked shit. That's what we do.
4. Sending in pre-approval paperwork tomorrow! House-hunting to commence shortly thereafter! I saw a five bedroom, two bath house in our price range on the listings the other day (I mean...I'm sure something was wrong with it, but it was still HEARTENING to see that much house for an amount we could afford.)
5. Coffee's still my north, my south, my east, my west, my working week, my day of rest.

Patriotic Observations

This was not pre-meditated, but I ended up wearing my KGB shirt (with the above image on the back) today. Happy 4th everybody!

1. So far, the new season of True Blood is living up to expectations! Naked vampire squabbling!
   
2. I really missed hanging out with other inked-up old punks during the Exile. The joint birthday party of H + D the other night was a wonderful return to form.
3. I almost bought a single-speed bike the other day. B convinced me to simmer on it, especially because E doesn't get back from Germany for about a month (at which point she'll presumably want her bike back. Doh!)
4. My kid has grown like a fucking FOOT in the last month or so.
5. Yes, yes, I know I shouldn't eat so much carbs. But...it's like my only vice! Besides the drinkin', I mean!
6. I like playing Dragon Age on my computer and Dungeons and Dragons in real life. There have also been some discussions of me running a 4th ed. Vampire game.
   
7. The really successful run buying pants the other week obviated the need to do anything productive this weekend.