Feast Weekend

It began with a pub dinner as all weekends should. On Saturday, we went in for haircuts followed by breakfast downtown at the bakery. We then drove to Asheville's new used bookstore, possibly Your Sister's new favorite haunt. She piled up on books and I found a horror DVD. I discovered they keep the graphic novels in the Hobbies section with gaming manuals, and this only makes sense if you rename Hobbies as the Things Teen Boys Like section. But that omits the geek girls and adults, and then you realize the store owners can't be bothered to file the material correctly, and it should then be the Stuff We're Too Old To Relate To section.

We headed back to the airport plaza, and Your Sis, upon being asked about Valentine's gifts, admitted she wanted bling. Yes, bling. She described the ring she wanted but couldn't find it at the stores we tried. I'm hitting the mall after work to find it. I'm glad she managed to find something to ask for; normally she perpetuates a monastic refusal of luxury. This I can find and buy before Wednesday. At Best Buy, she got me the first Guitar Hero game, and now I have both to torture her with. She's thinking of a laptop to replace her PC. The school handed out stripped-down laptops to some teachers, but they have no reader drives. No 3.5 discs, no CDs, no DVDs. Nothing. It's a hermit computer. If you don't have a network cable or a jumpdrive, you're screwed.

We got home and had lunch at the new spot in town, The Square Root. It's swank and affordable, with a wood theme. The floor is made up of 6,000 cross-cut wood blocks. The bar is a felled tree. And the food is good. But if you get the bison burger, hold the fried jalapeños. Trust me. Afterward, I wrapped up the mash-up CD for Travis. The get-together was great, and I met again some folks from the Halloween race. They inspired me to get going on the exercise again, and I did a small routine the next day. They also shared a buffalo wing recipe I'm gonna try tonight.

On Sunday, we had a big lunch, shopped for groceries, and she took her second long nap of the weekend. I worked on the comic story and finished up the laundry. We caught the first bit of the Grammys, just enough to see the reunited Police, and watched half of Inherit the Wind, which is quickly becoming my favorite movie.

Picture of the Day
The party attendees were all eager for 300, news that warms the heart of this lifelong comic geek.

In the News
The Dixie Chicks owned the Grammys with five wins, including song, record, and album of the year. Maybe most galling for their detractors is their win for country album of the year, the third album in six years to win despite little to no country-radio support (Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn are the others). They won in every category they were nominated. And in other news sure to make Bill O'Reilly unhappy, Ludacris won for best rap album and rap song. The Police sounded sharp last night, and I hope they tour in this area later in the year.