Ryan’s Place

The guy next to me on the plane from Madison to Minneapolis today decided that it would be a good idea to spill beer on me after he got back from the bathroom.  I didn’t think it was such a good idea, but to each his own, right?He apologized no fewer than three times, but that was aboutit.  I’m not sure that I could have expected more than an apology, but I do now have an entire left side of me that smells like Bud Light.  I’m thinking I’ll have to send my clothes out for laundering at the hotel tonight for fear of my room reeking like a townie bar at 2:00 AM.

Doxycylene + omega 3 pill + multivitamin = vomit.  Thankfully I hadn’t had breakfast yet.  No further comments.

I went to Harvest tonight for my birthday.  I knew it was Madison’s restaurant week, but I did not know that all Harvest would be serving is the restaurant week menu.  I wouldn’t have went if I knew that was the case.

Ross had called a few days ago to make a reservation, however his name was somehow missing from the list when we arrived.  Luckily(unluckily?), they seated us anyway.

We were given a one page menu, with three options in each of three sections: soup/salad, entree, dessert.  I inquired about ordering something off the regular menu, but was told it was restaurant week items only today.  The waitress came back a couple minutes later and informed me they had sturgeon for an extra $5.

To start, I had a field greens with walnut vinaigrette.  Ross had a squid citrus salad.  The vinaigrette tasted hardly of walnut, and no walnuts were included in the salad.  It was just mediocre.  The squid salad was advertised as being with olives, but no olives were included.  Odd, no?

I ended up getting the sturgeon, Ross got the short ribs.  The sturgeon was decently cooked, but came out a bit cool and it had no sauce.  Luckily, the fish was juicy enough to stand by itself.  It was served atop spaetzle, but only a tiny amount.  I’m not sure why they even bothered to put it on the plate.  The short ribs were pretty good, if not a bit on the salty side.

Dessert was vanilla panna cotta for me and a chocolate cake for Ross.  My panna cotta was supposed to be served with a blood orange compote, but instead came with simple orange supremes and no sauce at all.  Ross’ cake was very dry, to the point of not really being that good at all.

Service was so-so, with only one roll being served to each of us before we had to ask for an additional.  Drinks were decent, and the atmosphere wasn’t bad.

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I started the meal feeling disappointed that I couldn’t order off the regular menu, and left feeling disappointed that the meal wasn’t better despite that.

Madison.com reported breaking news tonight.  Too bad I can’t tell what decision it’s about.  What decision was to be made?  Do they report every Famous Footwear decision?  Do they report every indecision?  I read the article and quickly found out what the decision was, but shouldn’t a breaking news headline be more specific than that?

1. The security line is two lines in one.  Where one row of people should be standing, SAT decided it was big enough for two rows.
2. A group was handing out Watchtower from a kiosk.
3. Wifi is nearly impossible to access (use wifi4public – it works after the 10th try, and it costs $6.95/day).
4. Traffic is miserable all around it.
5. NWA’s operations are entirely outsourced.
6. There is no WorldClub, or President’s Club, or Crown Room Club.
7. It takes forever to get from the gate to the runway.
8. Avis’ lot is a shuttle ride away.
9. The security line is two rows of people squished into one line (see #1 above).

I ate at Boudro’s on San Antonio’s River Walk tonight (the official site spells it River Walk, everyone else spells it Riverwalk), it was ehh.  I had stuffed quail, but it was overstuffed and overpoweringly flavorful.  The fresh limeade was very good, as was the tableside guacamole.  People were eating outside along the “river” (it’s man-made) with western-style ponchos on.

Afterwards, I took a few pics with my new camera.

Dear Marriott,

I hate that changing channels on most of your televisions takes forever.

I also can’t stand the lady that hawks movies as soon as I turn on the tv in just about every hotel of your that I stay in.  I now immediately change the change or mute the sound whenever I turn on a tv in your establishments.

Love,
Ryan

P.S. I still like earning reward points from you.

On my flight today (MSN -> MSP), we got as far as the runway and had to turn around and go back to the gate.  Apparently ground personnel neglected to close a panel on the front of the plane.  Ooops.

Isn’t it a little odd that the CNN debates had an Obama commerical in one (probably more) of their breaks?  Did other candidates “sponsor” the debate?

According to MSNBC, Mike Huckabee made the following quote in Warren, Michigan on 1/14 (check out a video at Crooks and Liars):

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”

Let me point out the specific part that should appall you “we need to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards”.  Sick.  Sick and wrong.  As an American you should be disgusted.

Almost equally worse, MSNBC’s David Shuster says after that “this is good and bad for Mike Huckabee because that shot was shot so far away that it might not get much newsplay because he was so off far in the distance”.  So Mike Huckabee makes one of the most vile comments yet in this election and it won’t get much airtime because you couldn’t see his face up close.  Perfect.  We don’t televise miserable quotes if they were recorded during a long shot.

The print media is going to cover the heck out of this, right?  Someone’s going to compare the first amendment to this quote and rip him apart, right?

 Ugh.

The State Journal decided to redo the design and layout of its sections this week.  I’m not much of a fan.  I didn’t see anything wrong with the old ones, but they were apparently too old looking or something.  Section A seems to be untouched.  Other than a small box above the nameplate pointing out something changed, I don’t see an article explaining the changes or why they happened.  In any case, the shot below shows the new design.

As you can see, the section headings received a colored band with a tiny white fringe at the bottom  (seemingly a printing mistake?) .  It’s eminiscent of USA Today more than anything, although USA Today is more creative with colors.  The WSJ has three sections in varying shades of green, while two other sections are shades of blue.  Apparently there’s a deal on blue ink this week?  A glance at Saturday’s paper shows that a red and orange section made it into the mix.

One odd thing is that any sections that were likely printed in advance (A&E, Adventure, Lifestyle) have serif fonts for the section titles, while anything printed last night (section A, Local, Forum) has a sans-serif font.  What the heck?  Are they trying to be inconsistent?  Next thing you know I’ll have customer service telling me a new feature of the paper is the ability to customize the fonts to my liking.

In addition to getting a color makeover, the first pages of the fluff sections seem to focus on one major story above the fold – some sections not even indicating the presence of another story on the top half (see the purple A&E section in the pic).  Only the more real news focused sections don’t have a massive image above the fold.  It also seems like the primary story for each section gets a different, sans-serif, font from the headlines of the other stories (which are in a serif font) as a kicker of sorts.

I’m not a big fan of the changes nor the inconsistency, but maybe that will change.

That would be the question most readers ask when following the ”Village Candidate Could Take Office in Jail” link on Madison.com’s home page.  The problem, however, is that the article doesn’t answer that seemingly obvious question.  To no surprise, the article, which is uncredited, is written by WKOW.

Also not indicated are potential jail terms, the terms of his reelection, and when exactly his sentence might start in relation to when voting happens.

Perhaps I’m missing something reading the article.  Perhaps there’s something there that everyone else sees and I don’t.  Perhaps WKOW should stick to TV reporting and leave articles like this to the State Journal and Capital Times.  Am I wrong?