Monday, August 30, 2010

LATEST EATS


Like I wrote some time ago we have been trying to eat at less expensive restaurants than normal. Normal went from $100 plus a meal to $60 plus a meal to under $30 a meal. For two with tip.

Stacey took this photo when we were in Bangkok.

These are some of the spots we have been getting these under $30 meals at.

Righteous Room, Q's Southern Food, Taqueria La Oaxaquena, Rio Grande, Five Guys Burgers and Taco Rancho.

Most of these spots have been around awhile. Taco Rancho is new. It is almost a full menu, full on Mexican restaurant. Five Guys is a real good burger, lots of fries for $2.60. Fresh stuff and a well run franchises.

Oaxaquena and Rio Grande are hole in the wall joints on the south side of Atlanta and they both rock and they are both very cheap and they are both real Mexican food. The folks running each of these spots are not locals and when we eat there we are usually the only gringos in the place. Our bill is usually $20 with a tip. Check out the tamales at Oaxaquena.

Q's is in East Point. A few blocks from our house. They have good food. Meat and threes. Really it's meat and two. With cornbread. Everybody has got a favorite meat and three and lot's of them are pretty good. Q's is a little better than "pretty good". I love their oxtails. I love their chicken fried steak. I like their Mac and Chz a lot. Their dressing is good. Their fried chicken does not suck. Lil' Lady loves their rutabagas. She gets some every time.

Righteous Room has been in the Plaza Shopping Center at Ponce and Highland Ave in midtown Atl. for the last 15 years. Bare bones, good beer cheap. Always good bar food and cool service.
They have a choice list of beers and a hand full are $3-4 a pint/bottle. Wish it was closer to East Point.

So there!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

EDWARD HOPPER


http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/1779/1/?newsmaker=80&redirectURL=http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsmaker/art-and-photography/?cid=topic:topnav:artb

Sunday, August 8, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I got a call the other day from a guy named Michael. He said he was calling from Emory Hospital and wished to speak with Tracy Hartley. I'm me I informed him, how could I help him? He told me this was a follow up call concerning my bone marrow transplant. Shit, I had forgotten all about that small medical procedure I had received, what was it, 14 years ago? "It's been 14 years whata ya wanta know" I ask him? "You haven't spoken to anyone from Emory since then" he ask? "No one" I told him.

It was July 30th. It was my 48th birthday and here was some guy calling 14 years later to check on me. So I went into this very long winded, detailed description of every aliment I had suffered in the last 14 years. Michael keep trying to interrupt, but I plowed forward. I told him about my back problems. I told him about the poison ivy rash I had suffered. I told him how bad the headaches were when Stacey and I went on a cleansing diet and cold turkey quit caffeine. I told him about the different times I cut myself and had to be stitched up in the emergency room. I told him how I thought I was dying after taking penicillin, which I had obviously become allergic too. I told him about how my blood pressure was giving me trouble. I told him about the time all the bees stung me. I told him about busting my toe and how it took a year for toe nail to fall off and another year to grow back. Hell I even made stuff up just to make it sound really good.

Finally I took a breath and he jumped at the chance to say something. He ask "what about the transplant, what about the cancer any problems with that"? "Oh that" I said, "no problem, no problem at all, check back in 14 years" I told him.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Bigotry Takes a Hit

Info

by Michelle Goldberg
The Daily Beast.

BS Top - Goldberg Same Sex Marriage

Most people who followed the Proposition 8 trial expected Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to overturn California’s same-sex marriage ban. Still, the scope and breadth of the decision is thrilling. In clear, cogent prose, Walker systematically eviscerated every hackneyed canard and bad-faith assertion offered by religious conservatives to justify rank bigotry against gays and lesbians.

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license,” Walker wrote. “Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional,” the judge ruled.

read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-04/prop-8-overturned-vaughn-walkers-ruling-on-gay-marriage/?om_rid=NE2jGV&om_mid=_BMWq3ZB8RQ-ysj&