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.

So I got me this cool new gig working for www.e2campus.com

It's a work from home job (awesome) and requires me to be up on the latest mobile technology.

Thus I've got this new "blackberry curve". I was skeptical at first, but man, this thing is sweet.

It even takes decent pictures. Here's a shot of my lil dog, Miss Millie.

Looking for a dog park in Buffalo? Well, most people have heard about the one in LaSalle Park. That's a nice facility and all, but after the 100th visit or so, you might be looking for somewhere else to take your 4-legged friend..

Not many people know about the "secret" dog park... Amherst State Park (WIKIPEDIA - Amherst State Park) on Mill Street in Williamsville. (MAP TO: 400 MILL STREET)

It's a beautiful old abandoned apple orchard, with a stream running through it and PLENTY of room to run. This little known gem in Amherst has been a closely guarded secret of the residents of Amherst for years.

Here's the catch... it's a STATE PARK... it's for everyone, not just rich white folks in Amherst. So I'm blogging here to let everyone know about it. If you're looking for a good "off leash" dog park, check out the AMHERST STATE PARK. Your taxes are paying or it, so go enjoy it!

Technically, the rules say you're supposed to keep your dog on the leash at all times, but from what I saw, no ones seems to follow that rule. Most people show up at 5 or 6pm on weekdays and let the dogs play 'til sunset... it's a blast!

As you may have noticed, my e-strip productivity has kinda died off. I haven't stopped writing, I've just moved it to my own little corner of the web. This will likely be my last post here, unless I use the API and tie it into Mambo somehow...

Why? This move is a good thing. Mainly b/c my wife and I have lots of stuff to post, much more than blog entries. Our main project on the site (ivyhurst.com) is our family genealogical project.

If you've never done any genealogy for your family, you totally should. It's been the most addictive and rewarding hobby for my wife and I. Digging through old records, tracking family members through history, finding out that I might be somehow related to Jesse James... all cool stuff...

Anyways... that's all on our site. (and my stupidity in blog format is represented, as well.)

About the site:

I went with Mambo ([link=www.mamboserver.com]http://www.mamboserver.com[/link]) for our main CMS, as it was easy to set up and customize. I just customized the default template, installed a few components and it was a go. I'm currently working on a new template, and that's coming along nicely.

For the genealogical portal site, we used TNG). That was one of the better $40 I've spent, as the software creator was super helpful in installation and dealing with moving our stuff from "ancestry.com", who is a pack of morons (for reasons to be explained in later blogs). TNG took a standard GEDCOM file and built a dynamic portal via php and MySQL. Very easy to customize, and very slick.

Since 1 site is enough, looks like I'm taking my lil' blogginess over to my new website (http://www.ivyhurst.com).

I did enjoy e-strip, and may post here again at some point. The community aspect is great,and I'm quite sure I won't have as many folks stumble onto my rampant stupidity there as would here, but that's OK. (Who really reads this stuff, anyways?)

-S

Here's a real scoop...



I think if/whenever I think I've totally lost it, I'm just going to re-read that bit of news and I'm quite sure I'll feel good about who I am and what I'm doing with my life.

Haven't posted anything in a while, but I have used a few post-its.

It would appear that one of my co-workers felt it was safe to take Monday off. It was not, and the 3M corporation thanks me for the increased sales of their popular Post-It product.




I think my lame office pranks are starting to grow predictable and stagnant. The formula seems to be:

Co-worker is away = Scott (and others) cover desk with crap.

Next time, I think I'll break the chain and just throw someone's shit out the window, or cover their tinfoil in office supplies.

When they return, I'll just deny everything. Now there's a prank. I can see it now...

Co-worker: "Dude... WTF? Where's my desk?"
Me: "Dunno. Haven't seen it."
Co-worker: "Seriously... not funny... where's my desk... my computer..."
Me: "I already told you... I haven't seen it! Fuck off already!!"

...oh the hi-jinks and hilarity that ensues...

In another work-related topic: I must travel to San Diego this weekend for a Pharmacy conference. Aside from scoring free drug samples and visiting the zoo, I'm open to suggestions on things to do in San Diego.

(This site needs a typo counter... mine would be up to around 500 b y now)

Here's why you should never leave your cube unattended anywhere near mine.



This cube belongs to The PJ, former drummer for a bunch of crappy bands, including my own former band 10 Pound Cock (Long defunct drunken punk rock band, and source of current user sound)

PJ's a coworker of mine and well, we all just felt he needed to be foiled.

As you can see, there's nothing quite like it. It's like a mini-xmas. Oh the joy!

Feel free to rip off this juvenile prank for your own purposes. (I sure as hell didn't invent it.)

Ok, (e:libertad) inspired me with his recent post. (e:libertad,26)

I felt I needed to post some history, American style...

With the Davinci Code movie about to be a big friggin' hit and all, I have been researching the occult and odd twists of history.

It turns out that George Washington is actually a lich (WIKIPEDIA - lich) (All you secret D&D nerds probably won't need that Wiki to know what I mean.)

As it turns out, ol' GW is alive and with us, and still quite manly. He has, however decided that the world is open-minded enough to accept him as the manly woman he always wanted to be, which explains why you'll never see both George Washington and Bea Arthur at the same dinner party.

Then... Fantastic!

Now... Fabulous!


Foul magic indeed.

I read (e:jenks,123) and felt compelled to post a soundtrack entry that fits the scene.

We all chicken out when it comes to asking someone out. Asking someone out involves putting yourself out there, ready to be crushed. It's a vulnerable state to be in, like Rhode Island. (No one wants to be in Rhode Island.)

Anyways... here's a great song that might help change the ending of that scene next time. In honor of (e:jenks), I've even posted the song as my user sound.

Scene: Letting someone slip bye without taking a chance. This is the music that should be playing in your head when you finally muscle-up the courage to walk over and ask him/her out.
Song: Stupid
Artist: The Long Winters
Album: When I pretend to fall
Description: A jangly indie-rock track. These guys sound like Wilco meets Paul Weller. They have a strong Weller-like beat here, with the folk-charm of Wilco in a rock song. The lyrics describe a guy who's been too shy to ask someone out his whole life, but decides he'd be more stupid if he never tried. Great motivation. Perfect "soundtrack music" for a soundtrack moment like (e:jenks,123)


(download this song here: )

I finally got a damned cell phone. It's a tether I'd avoided until this past week. With my impending wedding, it was becoming unavoidable, plus the "family plan" we moved to means it doesn't cost any extra. Being a cheap bastard, we got a new phone for my fiance and took her old one.

It's a camera phone. She'd taken photos, but never figured out how to get the pictures off the phone. Thus, it cam jam packed with memories I hadn't expected.

The most moving photos were ones I'd never seen of my dog. He passed away after 16 wonderful years on Mother's Day of last year.

Needless to say, it's ghostly to see pictures of an old friend who's passed on. But, at the same time, it's like getting to see him one last time. I just thought I'd pop them on this site for the hell of it, and to record a life well-lived.

His name was Goliath. He was a 1/2 poodle, 1/2 mutt we rescued from the pound. He was about 25 pounds and had the heart of a giant. With a name like Goliath, unsuspecting groomers would reserve a big, roomy cage for him. The name fit him well.

He was also the last surviving member of my immediate family here in western New York. (I have a brother who is in perfect health, but he lives in Japan and we've never been close.) So, Goliath's passing hurt pretty bad, but that's part of the deal when you get a dog, and I knew that all along.

Here's all the biased, over-glorified dog-owner stuff: Goliath was the best dog ever. The dog was a freak. Never barked. Never bit. Always friendly. House-broke himself. Learned tricks like he was a damned border collie. He listened to every stupid word I said. He liked all the songs I'd ever written, even the bad ones. He was my stupid little friend.

That's enough of a eulogy. (I've never beeen much of a Eugooglizer! )

I'll let the photos describe him as best they can...

Here's some of the shots I found on the phone...






Here's a typic shot of the old man begging for food...


Here's his "multimedia debut" when Goliath was the cover model for my old band Goof's 1996 CD "Koster Row". (I threw up a track off that disc as my user sound)


Here's the old man on the sofa a few days before he passed on. I'd kinda woke him up froma nap here...


Needless to say, this past year without my dog has been totally fucked. After 16 years, we'd become a team. My house still feels empty and I still get the urge to go for walks at midnight, even though there's no need.

About 6 months ago, we'd started visiting the SPCA and the Animal Shelter to try and find a dog. We'd had no luck so far and so we've decided to wait until after the wedding. That's the most rational decision, I guess.

Still, with a wedding coming, I really do miss the little bastard. Dogs make really good listeners.