I like the historical value of the place but it was a serious dump. There were flies all over the place (people were covering up their drinks with napkins) and the beer and cider were piss poor.… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

The fourth star is for convincing me kosher pickles is a necessity in life for me now. I never liked American pickles (give me good Asian or Middle Eastern pickles any day) but taking a bite out of… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

I curse this restaurant, I really do. Ever since I had the bone marrow here two years ago, I’ve been futilely searching for something like it in L.A. I found it amusing later when I was flipping… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

We decided to stop in for a drink (or five) before heading to dinner.

I loved this bar but then I love dark bars where you forget who you are sometimes.

The calamari was absolutely the best I ever… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

0827072020.jpg, originally uploaded by scottobear.

outside value city … cranes and sunset

(via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)

** this visit happened approximately 2 years ago

A friend has been telling me about this Lombardi’s place for years now. And he was so in love with the baked clams. So, we headed there for lunch.… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

I’d been warned about Mexican restaurants in NYC but after our flight was delayed and many hours of travel, we popped into the first place that looked like it could serve us a stiff drink. And that’s… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

I count the tasting menu I did here a couple of years ago the best meal in my life. Ever since then, I had been anxiously waiting for Batali to open a place in L.A. It was wonderful meal (see… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

When I heard Batali was coming to town nearly two years ago, I could not wait. So, it was so gratifying to finally be able to sit down and just experience what was sure to be an amazing night.

We… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

Maybe because I already love the W hotels but this one could not have been any more perfect.

Note this review is for the bar only.

I loved how huge the Whiskey Blue lounge was. There was seating… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

I just can’t bring myself to like Motherlode. I think the drinks suck and the last time we went, they charged $18 for one cape cod and one bottle of water. Unless there was some freakin’ Stoli Elit… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

+1 Decor- very dark browns and reds
+1 service- everything we asked for was answered with a pleasant “absolutely”
+1 food
+1 easy parking

My friend put me in charge of finding a great place to take… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

I couldn’t bear another night of take-out from Sha Sha Cafe (which is good but not every week) nor driving to sucktastic Burbank so I mentioned Solar de Cahuenga as a possibility. Isn’t it funny that… (via Scotto B. on Yelp)

Still too hot to do much of anything out and about in the Crisco soup-like atmosphere, so we opted to take in lunch at the Sbarro’s in the Annapolis Mall and then hit a movie. Who knows why we woke up at 7:30 on a Sunday, but it gave us a solid head start.

We finally caught the Simpsons Movie on the big screen… I was surprised – it was a lot better than I was expecting… pretty solid TV episode from back when it was funny. We only saw 3 bits that would make it warrant a PG-13 rating – an instance of nudity, a curse word (or two) and some drinking / drug use. I could see them showing all of it after 10pm on network tv unedited, or without those three instances any time at all.

On the way home, we noticed that ATW has changed the sign again, as the search for “the man” continues. (atw is now a tag just for my ease of searching the story thread and pictures, now.)

Click to view larger

ATW NEWSROOM
‘THE MAN’
BOOT RECOVERED
FINGERS POINTED
Police say ‘NO Statement – NO case’
Meanwhile, Man Sightings run rampant
Psychic to be called.

It was a good thing we caught an early show as the later part of the day was comprised of –

BHK Birthday Part II: Electric boogaloo!

Party at Tina’s place… Mexican food! Both Meat and veggie protein varieties – Tina’s not a big carnivore, either. Matt (her new boy) seems like a nice enough fellow and I hope they have maximum fun / minimum glum together. He’s certainly more social and generally conversational than DR or W. Dessert was yellow birthday cake with chocolate icing, compared favorably to yesterday’s lemon cake with lemon icing. Added bonus, BHK’s mom didn’t absent-mindedly start slurping the frosting off of the removed candles like last night, rather than giving them to the b’day girl to taste.

Aside from Tina and Matt, Adam, Jimmy, Louise, Chris and Larry all made it to celebrate. We fit pretty comfortably at Tina’s townhouse… I wasn’t sure if we’d all be able to manage, but it worked out quite well.

BHK’s Loot received:

from Louise : Necklace and bracelet of multi-colored pearls.
from Tina : A pair of Peridot Earrings / Hello Kitty purse (which looks like ms. kitty is making a gesture I’m sure wasn’t intentional)
from Larry & Chris – Red Coral necklace and Earrings / and some lovely crockery
from Danny – A swell looking green-stoned ring in gold. (and he got Tina some yellow-stoned earrings, too!)
from my Mom and Wilt – Turquoise and silver necklace, Halloween Snow globe, a little cornucopia and a really lovely card.
from me – a lot of knickknacks – Grease & Grease 2, a pair of pink pseudo-crocks, some stripy socks that mismatch/match, a pink headband with little jolly rogers, bath scrubbie, black cat bowl, a green wire basket, some fuzzy slippers and a gift cert to scalped.

I’m the only person that didn’t get her any jewelry… she told me specifically *not* to get her any. Now, I understand why.

May’ve recruited Adam and Jimmy into a parlor game night. Who knows, maybe they’ll lure Kendall and Amanda into it, too, and we’ll have a big night of it sometime!

I don’t know if Matt is into parlor games… I do know he digs the Redskins and is willing to put up with chick flicks. come to think of it, I don’t know for sure if Tina is interested in boardgames or not… I suspect that she, like the in-laws aren’t really into abstract games. Louise is a good candidate, but is harder to reel in to a date or time than the teens. The last time we saw her was her birthday, about 6 weeks ago.

Poor Danny has students in his classes now – he’s back to running the Sci-fi club, and is incorporating Pirates into the after school program. I should send him a bucket of heroclix or mage knight commons/doubles as a donation. He really liked the Superhero stamps and Lord of the Rings Risk game we shot off to him a little while back.

1 year ago – back from an all too brief visit, nose buttering, bunny suicides, events of the day, liberty city psp homebrew hack, jojo the cannibal kid, maple cookies, folks, met Adam / Future In-laws

2 years ago – power out phone post, hurricane katrina aftermath pictures (and Newt), Bro out, Techs unavailable

3 years ago – BK heads north, random visit to a 2001 entry, behavior variances, quiet-please

4 years ago – sleep schedule, zombie game (poor thing aborted), monkey helpers, first lost child.

5 years ago – Deer Hunter, Apache, Equality/freedom Poll, Emerson, flying saucer, heroclix 200 point armies, McD hot dogs, wpoison

6 years ago – that piercing woman , lj vibe change, many links (not all work anymore)

7 years ago – Godzilla, quizzes, leftyrok added me, IMT threatens to move all operations north to Tampa, dean martin (via Scotto’s Wall Scrawls)