October 2006 Archives

This weekend, I drove up and down Route 7 through Falls Church proper and saw some of the nifty things they've got going on in the fair city. It seems like they're balancing the small-town-near-a-big-city feel with the draw of building nice fancy condo buildings well enough. My main target this trip, though, was the infamous and mysterious CD Cellar.

Some people at work had told me about this place before, and ever since I moved close to the anchor store in Falls Church, I knew it wouldn't be long before I made a trip for a massive haul of used CDs. They deal exclusively in used stuff (including DVDs and VHS), which is exactly the kind of store where I can spend hours and hours just thumbing through the shelves, hoping to find some kind of obscure disc or EP (like maybe something from Geronimo Jackson). Stuart was my inspiration for this way back in the day, when he would come back from Second Time Around in Huntington with the entire catalogue of some obscure alternative band or jazz fusion guitar player and we'd dissect their discography in the floor of his living room. Fast forwarding a few years, I certainly recall spending many a college afternoon bouncing between Crossroads and The Record Exchange in Blacksburg, finding out what interesting picks the staff had displayed. It was in those stores that I amassed collections of half of my favorite bands to date.

Since I ended up walking out of the CD Cellar Saturday with $30 worth of six CDs (after all, I had to restrain myself a little bit), you can bet that I'll be going back. My potential ironic favorite of the bunch, regardless of the musical quality? The debut album of indie band Sam Champion, named after NYC and ABC's perennial weatherman of DOOM.

When I stay in Northern Virginia on the weekends (which is maybe 60% of the time), I try to expand my knowledge of Falls Church and the outlying areas as much as I can. It's always beneficial, for instance, to note which intersections are needlessly convoluted and hopelessly, perpetually snarled in traffic (Seven Corners), and which roads are handy shortcuts to places you'll be frequenting a lot (Shreve Road).

Like a good resident, I also try out as many local restaurants as I can, in search of some sort of hidden surprises. Most of the time this results in a happy Bret, a happy stomach, and a happy restaurant. For instance, we originally made fun of the alternate-universe shopping center behind our house, where everything is named ever so slightly differently from their national-brand counterparts (see "7 Market" and "Papa Joe's Pizza" for more). But now, I'm coming to rely on the ease with which I can pick up some excellent BBQ, a calzone or a pizza or even a gyro, and grab some popcorn or a pinata at the 7-M, all within a span of five minutes and minimal walking!

Elevation Burger on Lee Highway has always caught my eye when I drive to work. First by the name itself, then by the colorful signage inside. This weekend, I finally satisfied my curiosity. Imagine a cleaner, healthier, and 70% less greasy Five Guys, without peanut shells, and you can get the idea of what Elevation Burger is all about. Their fries are cooked in olive oil, and they offer a few veggie-burger-type things for those people who are meat adverse. They have stupendous milkshakes, too - I drank half of my strawberry shake just waiting on my cheeseburger to be done. It was just that irresistable. And the burger itself, though smaller than I was expecting for the price, was well worth the wait. Elevation Burger: it's family friendy, not too greasy, and awesome... just expect a little lighter wallet than if you'd gone to Wendy's or something.

Wow, so this is what a blog looks like! You know your blog has taken some priority hits when you even dare to miss mentioning its birthday, which was way back on October 7. I could do some smoke-and-mirrors backdating, but it's not that important. I'm not blogging with the level of infrequency everyone's used to, anyway, but I have a nice backlog of ideas and no shortage of inspiration from this crazy world. Anyway, happy belated 3rd birthday, Ramble On.

So the great American iPod journey ended somewhat anticlimactically. As it turns out, the online code misled me into believing a brand new iPod was coming as a replacement, when in fact, it was the same old beaten-but-proud iPod that got shipped back. But hey, I'm not complaining - the new battery works amazingly, and I no longer have to worry about charging the thing so much. Plus, on top of that, Apple finally got their act together and improved the bugs with iTunes 7.0, so all is right in my music-listening world again.

Midterms are now over (I only had one out of the two, anyway), but now there's a couple of gargantuan papers and presentations on the horizon. I might have to send this guy to take care of them.

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I checked on the status of my iPod today, after having scheduled DHL to pick it up from my house on Saturday. I went through some entry forms and got this status result:

Product replacement pending (03-Oct-2006)

Which means that:

"A replacement iPod will be shipped to you shortly."

So my initial response was, of course, "sweet!" Whether this is an exact replacement model with a new battery or an upgrade to a comparable model by Apple, I'm not sure. But either way, I'll be happy. The old Pod had a few dings and scratches after being hauled around so many times. The new hotness should be on its way soon!

Drowsiness... head full of cotton... motor functions slowing... it must be time for me to have my change-of-the-season allergy attack. Looks like I have a week of a constantly runny nose ahead of me, with a box of tissues and a handkerchief by my side at all times. Not to mention the sleepless nights; I took a few sick leave hours today trying to compensate for waking up every hour on the hour last night. One of these days I need to pull together some data and bar graphs comparing what time of year this thing actually hits me. Then I can better predict when I need to stock up on meds. It would be great; those bar graphs would be in vibrant color, and they would be awesome.

There's lots of stuff going on in October! This weekend, Gerritt and I will be playing in another wedding. It's been fun having an excuse to play lots of guitar every week. Figuring out melody lines and stuff has also given us some inspiration for a top secret project to work on over the next couple of months. Hopefully it will come to fruition, even though G's going to be busy at work for a while.

I sit in the Falls Church campus computer lab, waiting for class to start and fighting with this computer's spacebar. If I hadn't been paying attention, everysentenceinthisentrywouldhavelookedlikethis. Annoying!

The antihistamine-induced fog has lifted a bit, but for how long? I predict my eyelids will be drooping an hour into class. If I can just hold out a few more hours...