Generation Whine - Meet Generation Wine

So, I'm just gonna put this out there.  If you are over the age of 35, you did not whine like your children do. How do I know?  Because you are still around to ask whether you whined like that when you were a kid, and if you did, you wouldn't be!  Let me assure you, if you're over the age of 35 and whined like kids do now, your dad would have smacked you [HARD] and told you to shut up before he really gave you something to whine about...and you, being of sound mind, would have backed quickly out of the room and then made a run for it down the street or to some safer area because -- Dad wasn't kidding!
But now there's all this PC bullshit telling us that we need to "listen" to our children to help them find their own solutions and really learn how to nurture themselves.  Which means that we, as parents, are apparently supposed to sit back and listen to that irritating noise that eventually has us strung out to the point of totally losing it and telling our kids to "shut the fuck up" in our occasional complete breaks from sanity. 
Unless, of course, we have uncorked another bottle.  So, when you've already explained to your kid that you can't understand her because you don't speak Whinese and that Whambulance has come and gone, make your way over to the liquor cabinet and pour yourself a hearty glass of whatever thing your hand lands upon first.  It won't stop the whining but you won't give a shit!

Denver Dives - The Restaurant Critic Series

Thailanding Cafe - 1984 Nome Street, Aurora 80010

When we arrived in the parking lot of Thailanding, I was immediately suspect of Paul's choice for lunch.  What would you think?

It's next door to a laundromat in a very rundown part of Aurora.  I was not expecting much.  But then I noticed an Illy coffee poster in the window, which I thought was odd.  It's about the most expensive coffee around, and it seemed out of place.  I was intrigued, I won't lie.

Then you go inside and it kind of doesn't match the weird strip-mall exterior.  It's kind of this cheery diner/Asian restaurant vibe with Naugahyde benches in a sort of hospital beigish-pink with some odd art work on the walls.  But there's also a bunch of Shiva/Buddha/some other Thai goddess icons around.  It's funky in a weird 70s kind of way...At this point the jury was still out on the place, and we were the only people in there, so my skeptical side was rearing its ugly little head...but I was still anxious to taste the food.

And WOW - the food was GREAT!  It's one of those places that you go up to the counter to order from a menu that has about 100 items to choose from so you might feel a little overwhelmed.  But don't freak out - just pick something and I'm sure it will be good.  I got Massuman Curry with Chicken for $6.95 and Paul got Hot Spicy Thai Pork (Pud Kra Pow) for $5.95.  Neither one of us knew what to expect, but they were both delicious.  And the best part is that there's none of this cheap lunch/expensive dinner phenomenon that frequently happens at Asian restaurants.  It's one menu day and night, totally reasonable (i.e.cheap) prices and great food.

Dos Pulgares!!
Two big thumbs up!

Real Conversations With My Imaginary Dietary Consultant (IDC)

IDC: You know, you really shouldn't eat those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups the kids got for Easter.
Me: Oh, they're just the small ones. It's not a big deal.
IDC: So how many small ones does it take to make a full-size one?
Me: Oh, Jesus, I have no idea.  Probably like - 12??
IDC: Mmmm, I'd guess more like 2 or 3.
Me: No way.  It takes at least 5 to make a full size.
IDC: Let's just assume it's 4.
Me: Whatever.  4.  What's your point?
IDC: There's like 10 wrappers in the trash, so basically you've eaten more than a full pack by now.
Me: Well, not of the Walgreens/movie theater 4 packs.  That's like barely more than half, and that's using your crazy math of only 4 smalls = 1 large and everyone knows that there's at least 8 smalls in one big.
IDC: Really, there's only so much I can do here...
For the record, there were not more than 5 wrappers in the trash.  Frickin' exaggerating IDC!

Goodbye Explorer...Hello Firefox

So I just switched my default browser to Firefox because when I upgraded to the "improved" version of Blogger.com, it took away my spell check...which, if you asked me, is just lame!  There's some nonsense explanation online about how the interest (Google in particular) is multilingual so it doesn't behoove them to have spell check just in English.  Hello - I'm blogging in America and I don't want shit misspelled on my blog!
Whatever!  Firefox just does it automatically for me, so see ya' later Microsoft!

Lo-prah's Book Club

The Privileges by Jonathan Dee
OK - so I don't know what I think about this book.  It's the story of this East Coast couple who get married too young but make things work because they have some incredible bond and love each other madly.  They live in NYC and he gets a Wall Street job and makes tons of money and then has some illegal insider trading scheme that makes him really a ton of money and eventually he starts his own hedge fund and becomes like really really really rich (4 syllable rich - Paul would say - like ri-hi-hi-hich!).
Anyway, they have this silly life of exorbitant privilege and their kids are these sheltered entitled losers.  And there's really nothing particularly compelling about any of the characters that makes you care one way or the other about what happens to them.  It's not that they are total assholes like Michael Douglas in Wall Street or anything.  Nobody ever says "greed is good," but you can tell that living in the perfect penthouse overlooking Central Park and belonging to the perfect clubs and living as the "perfect people" is all these people ever wanted for themselves.  And they get it - without ever having to endure any kind of struggle to get there.  It's like they are so patently un-selfaware that it never even occurs to them to question their actions or take stock along the way.  Life just happens to these people.  Even the seemingly seedy or illegal activity the guy gets involved in just seems to wrap itself nicely up when he decides he no longer wants to do it.  It's just weird.
In the end they realize they want to "do something good" for they world so they start some multinational foundation to save the world or end poverty or some such shit - blah blah blah.  And throughout the book I found myself asking "do I have the slightest interest in what becomes of these people?"  And the answer was a resounding NO.
You can't possibly feel sorry for these people or their poor-little-rich-kid kids with their stereotypical drug problem on the one hand and self-loathing for coming from money on the other.  The guy who makes his zillions of dollars but can't stop because making money seems to be the only thing he knows how to do - oh, cry me a river, or his beautiful wife whose father left when she was a kid and finds herself forever needing to feel needed and/or wanted by him.  It's just all so cliché.  But there's nothing interesting enough to really hate about them either - so like I said, I just found myself asking "so what" throughout the entire book.
But then again, it's not like I hated the book or was so bored that I couldn't finish.  (Well, to be fair, it's only 250 pages and it took me over a week to finish reading every night when I went to bed...so I obviously could put it down.)  But, I finished it, so I must have had some level interest.  It wasn't like Prodigal Summer that I started and put down about 10 times before finally packing it away in the guest-room closet hoping to hand it off to some sucker passing through on the way to the airport.  Maybe I just don't get it.  It's probably too complex and/or subtle for me.  I guess I should stick to the Twilight series!

Maybe the hit-counter is not such a good idea!

So far I have a grand 3 hits...and I believe all 3 of them were by ME.  This could be damaging to the overall self-esteem thing I've got going on...we'll see!

Real Conversations with my Imaginary Fashion Consultant (IFC)

IFC: You need to go change. You can't wear sweatpants in the middle of the day on a work day.

Me: Oh, these aren't sweat pants. They're yoga pants. Besides, I don't work.

IFC: Well the fact that you don't work - that's abundantly clear...but are you doing yoga right now?

Me: Uh, no.

IFC: Have that planned for later, do ya?

Me: Well, no. I'm just wearing these. They're comfortable.

IFC: And yesterday - those velour things, I suppose those weren't sweatpants either?

Me: No - those are more like "leisure wear." It's the new daytime casual.

IFC: Go put some real clothes on for God's sake.

Me: Why? I'm just sitting at home by myself. Why does it matter?

IFC: It matters!

Me: I don't get why.

IFC: That's my whole point...

Just for the record...my imaginary fashion consultant it a total wimp...I'm sitting here in velour leisure pants right now!