Chris and I are enjoying a yummy dinner at El Palenque in amherst.

I dunno what "el palenque" means. From the menu, it must mean "the cock fight."

Anyhow, the food rocks. Sure, it all looks like brown goop, but it's yummy goop!

If you're looking for some decent Mexican chow, hit this place. Yum!

A good friend makes you more than you thought you could be.

A good friend can even make you into a lucador.



I have a good friend, indeed.

Spent my new years with some friends. We went to Marinaccio's on Main Street in Williamsville.

It's supposed to be fine dining, and Lance Diamond was playing their ballroom, so it looked like a perfect fit. I'd given my wife one of them "good anywhere" gift certificates, and Marinaccio's is on the list. She wanted to try the place... so off we go.

Well, seeing Lance Diamond was fun, as Lance always is. The man's a Buffalo, NY staple. The restaurant, well that's another story. We quickly found that the place is WAY overpriced (Surf and Turf for $76... you gotta be kidding me!!), the wait staff was kinda rude, and they actually tried to refuse to take a gift certificate. Not a coupon... a gift certificate. I had to explain to the manager that this wasn't a discount. I'd already paid them when I bought the certificate. After some arguing, they realized that they were wrong and took the certificate.

On to the meal...

I had shrimp with scallops over angel hair pasta. It was OK. I didn't take a picture b/c it wasn't worthy. Totally average. I was so expecting above average. (The prices mandated above average!) Others among my friends had salmon steaks (neither finished them due to blandness), and one of us had the chicken. At $21, a chicken entree better be yummy. The review was: This tastes like boiled chicken. Not good at all. A $160 check later, dinner was over and no one was too satisfied... So, it's on to LANCE DIAMOND!


We decided to make the evening more fun than it was...

Here's Andy and Shannon...


Andy drank about half a bottle of Cutty Sark (yeah, Cutty Sark... *barf*) This is Andy looking kinda evil.


Here's Lance attempting to get the party moving. Unfortunately, most of the crowd would require 3 to 6 Viagra and/or a Rascal Scooter to actually get moving.


Lance rocks a mean party. We got to watch about 30 nearly-geriatric couples shake things that shouldn't shake. I did notice one Buffalo school board member on Lance's bongos. It got me thinking... Bongos in Lance's band and Buffalo's school board members. What do these 2 have in common? If you guessed "They're both totally useless and just suck up resources." You'd be correct.


Chris ((e:ruleofblue)) insisted I take a picture of the under-developed balloon embryos that appeared to be digesting in a transparent plastic whale above the tiny dance floor. Note the old geezers shaking it to Lance Diamond. Man, his show's too good for that place. WTF was lance doing out there??

Here's a pic of me with a cutout of Lance. I was drunk, it was late. No excuse...



Anyways... much fun was had, and I learned that Merinaccio's is a waste of money. I also get to pass that along to you in the hopes that others will not fall into the pitfall we fell into.

Tomorrow I start a new life working from home. Got my home office all set up, my work vonage account set up. I'm ready to go. The feeling of freedom is mildly terrifying. No office to go to. No clock to punch.

I'm looking forward to the work, that's for sure. I'll be working with new technologies in a budding new field on a top-notch product. I just pray I don't come to resent my new office confines as much as I hated cubicle life.