m.toast: Talked to Nutscraps last night...
pditty: yes?
m.toast: Sounds like she's doing pretty well.
m.toast: Considering some paid freak punched a couple holes in her back.
pditty: oh, that's right! i'm glad she's ok
pditty: when does she come back?
m.toast: Probly tomorrow.
m.toast: Received a few transmissions from the percocet cloud last night.
m.toast: Some a little fuzzy…
pditty: what?
m.toast: The percocet cloud in which she is presently living.
m.toast: Sounds like they kept her awake the whole time.
m.toast: They gave her a local. !
m.toast: So they could ask her if she could feel her feet.
m.toast: And toes. And legs...
pditty: OMG!! i would not want that
m.toast: Yeah. She said she was in pain for quite a bit of it.
m.toast: But she said her back doesn't hurt presently.
m.toast: I'm glad she came through OK.
pditty: oh, god, yeah!
m.toast: Hopefully she'll be CURED. Of her back problems.

(Say hi to pditty from the Shiny Tower, ya'll. My habit of blog-terrorizing coworkers continues...)

Spent the start of my weekend waaaay out in Podunk, Mizzourah. Accompanied various friends and co-conspirators (AKA the Cass County Lamenters
and “support staff”) to El Dorado Springs on Friday night, where the band was set to entertain at the town’s annual picnic. Which is apparently a big, hookie three-day deal involving on-stage entertainment (think Elvis-singing midget), a carnival/midway, and everyone in town who is anyone.

What a pleasant lark. I think I had almost as much fun as these people. Besides scarfing ice cream, hot pretzels, and giant pickles, we took in the Eldorado Springs Municipal Band (slightly out of tune and flat, but oh-so-small-town-charming) then treated ourselves to a couple pre-gig beers at a downtown dive. (Which was eerily reminiscent of at least four bars I can think of in KCK. It was almost as if we’d never left the city...)

Next up were the Lamenters on stage, belting out the Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. I enjoyed, but you couldn’t tell whether the audience members did. Mf. The small-town Midwest and old people. Maybe we could’ve collected empiric evidence of fun-having if they’d been outfitted with cardiac monitors.

After the performance, we were free to roam the midway, eat junk, and ride rides. MarianLiberryan and I hit the ferris wheel, while V watched. Then we bought more tickets so all of us could ride the carousel. Sadly, however, my plan to ride the wild chicken was thwarted. The carnie in charge claimed the carousel was kids-only, and unceremoniously made us get off. Sigh.

Slightly bummed, we attempted to console ourselves by catching the previously mentioned Elvis-singing little person, who did a very creditable job of Elvis-ness. Even if he wasn’t wearing a miniature rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, as Marian and I’d hoped. Afterwards was the hour or so trip back, which I spent comfortably dozing in the car, despite my giant pickle-induced stomach ache. Weekend joy, thy name is podunk town picnic.

Click for the Flickr slide show of weekendish small-town joy.

Lately I’ve had some bad non-hamburger devices around town. Real burgers are pretty easy: fresh meat, a good sauce/condiments, and a bun. Finished. The veg-friendly non-burger, however, is much trickier. By this I mean veggie burgers, Garden burgers, and other such Burger Replacement Devices. It’s hard to find good ones.

For example, tried Blanc Burgers and Bottles in Westport awhile ago with burger maven Mandy’s Musings. Thought the high-end burgers might help in her top 10 burger quest, after hearing braggings about this place. Unfortunately, the regular hamburgers turned out to be just OK, according to MM (they were out of kobe beef), and the lentil burger was pretty bad. Dry and vaguely unpleasant-tasting. And I usually love any sort of lentil-thing. However, the onion rings were divine, and the sweet potato fries were alright.

I also had a fairly bad veggie burger at the Flying Saucer (13th and Walnut) on one of my few forays into the Power and White District. The thing looked as if it had started out as a veggie burger, then someone grilled the crap out of it. It was like a hockey puck. On a bun. They did try to fancy it up with avocado and other vegetation. But it didn’t really help the overall problem. I suspect the thing would have ranked high on the Mohs scale, if I had had a diamond handy with which to scratch it.

So, enough bitching. Where to get a good BRD? The general rule of thumb seems to be that if the bar food is good, the BRD will be too. My short list of places includes:

• Governor Stumpy’s
  
• Sharp’s 63rd St Grill
  
• Eden Alley (of course)
  
• One 80 Lounge

For your perusal, some random photos taken at my favorite bus stop, Petticoat Lane and Main Street. Was doing the usual bus line rambling last weekend, and came to rest here (for the 100th time) to wait for the Max. Is it wrong to have a favorite bus stop? This one is actually cozy, in an odd way.

If you sit or stand with your back against the building on the north side of the street on Petticoat, right next to the bus stop sign, and look in any direction, you get the feeling of being completely enclosed by buildings and concrete. To the point that there's not much noise because the spot has so many angles and corners closing it off from the neighboring blocks. Always gives me the feeling of being sheltered, either by sun-warmed concrete in the summer or from the cold blustery winds in the winter. Tried to capture that closed-in-but-cozy feeling with some photos...

For those of you who have asked, my dating life is going just fine, thanks. I’ve recently switched from buying dates at Whole Foods to buying them from the Al-Habashi Mart in the City Market. World of difference.

The Whole Foods ones come in a little plastic tub. In which they seem to have been entombed because they’re fairly desiccated. Al Habashi has more of an open-air policy. As in, you pick them out from an open box sitting on the counter top. Which seems a little scary at first, but they’re much fresher and juicier.

I’ve heard good things about buying dates in bulk over the intarweb, but I’m not sure that would be a good idea. As I’m usually hard pressed to stop after eating two or three, and having 10 pounds of dates available at any time probly wouldn’t work well for me, gastrointestinally speaking.

To those who have asked about the species of dates excluding Phoenix dactylifera, I say NUNYA.

Used to be that finding out about crime in a KCMO neighborhood was a big fat pain in the butt. To get public records of KCPD crime reports, you had to download giant Excel pdfs and sift through them looking for addresses in your area. Or endlessly bug the KC Star reporters who run Crime Scene KC to post the records online when they randomly and irregularly received them from the police.

No mas! Now KCPD’s long-promised public record crime reporting system is online. All the KCPD data is being fed into CrimeReports.com, which features a really nice map interface showing all the 24-hour badness happening in KCMO. Just enter your (or any KCMO) address, and off you go. You can break results down by type of crime, distance, period of time, etc.


Color me excited. It’s nice to see a little bit of that “promise of the Intarnet” thing working here locally. And to know that someone finally called the police on that asshole down the street who’s always drunkenly yelling at his girlfriend…

(For the interesting fine print, such as how much the city is paying for this, check out the CrimeReports.com law enforcement page and FAQ.)

m.toast: I'm a little worried. About my lunchbox...
m.toast: It was dripping earlier. Ewh.
InsidiousJ: yeah, ewh
InsidiousJ: was something dripping on it? or from it?
m.toast: From it.
m.toast: I was afraid maybe it had contracted a social disease.
m.toast: I wonder if it needs medical attention.
m.toast: Maybe a strong course of antibiotics.
InsidiousJ: lol
m.toast: I left it unattended in the lunchroom fridge.
m.toast: No chaperone. Who knows what it's been up to.
m.toast: I may have to give it a safe sex talk. Double ew.
InsidiousJ: lol
m.toast: It needs to wear a Ziploc. You know...
m.toast: If "things" happen. Heh.
InsidiousJ: stop. you're killing me over here
m.toast: I'm semi serious. That lunchroom fridge is nasty.
InsidiousJ: yes it is nasty.
m.toast: I worry. You can't watch them all the time...
InsidiousJ: right. right. at some point you have to trust
InsidiousJ: that they've actually been paying attention to what you try to teach them
m.toast: Yes. To trust their own judgment in choosing a Thermos. Er, partner.
InsidiousJ: right. and to remember the ziplock. every time.
m.toast: Exactly.

I’m usually not squishy about my birthdays, but this year the squishiness crept in. In many envelopes with birthday cards, in bags and boxes, in emails and snail mail. Just wanted to take a blog post to say thanks to everyone who made (and is making) No. 35 a very good birthday indeed. I’m definitely feelin’ the Toast-love this week.

Many thanks to:

• Davey's Uptown Rambler, the Boulevard Brewery, Mr. Marco’s V7, and the Dead Kennedys
  
• Friends bearing handsome brown scarves and bottles of ramune drink
  
• My favorite co-workers, who suffer with me through many forced Olive Garden lunches
  
• The ‘rents, sibs, and Step Units, who I bitch about a lot, but really am lucky to have
  
• All the blog types for their many thoughtful b-day tweets
  
• Everyone who is taking me out for b-day lunch/dinner/drinks this week (it's a lot of folks!)

And special thanks go out to my closest girlie friends, who are wondrous and powerful females, each and every one. If we could only get together in public places and yell about vaginas every day, our world would be a better place.

Thank you, everybody!