Hugh Hollowell

Stephen Baldwin has announced that he is not leaving the country after the election of Barack Obama, despite his threat to do so before the election. Now he says he was only kidding. Well, heck.

Some of my posts go wild in the comment box. If you, like 19 other people, recommended a place to eat in my recent call for restaurants and want to see if anyone else had better recommendations, now you have the option when you leave a comment to subscribe and get an email when someone follows your comment with a comment.  Just one more way I am wasting your time trying to make your life easier.

In the last 12 months, three people I went to high school with have died.  Forrest, Jason, John Cal… you guys went way too early.  I pray you have found comfort and peace.

Thanks to Ruby, I can now recognize the signs if my cat is plotting to kill me. Very funny (and a bit scary…)

Lots of passion here.  Don’t go crazy in the comments box calling me a heretic for posting this either, OK? If you seriously want to discuss this, let’s grab some coffee and discuss it, face to face.

YouTube.

Thnx Abby!

In almost a year and a half of living in Raleigh, I have come to one conclusion; the food here sucks. And I am not just talking Bar-B-Que. I mean everything.

Now, admittedly, there is some hyperbole in the previous paragraph. For one thing, I have not tried every single restaurant in the city. And I have had some good meals in some restaurants. But by and large, when asked how a meal was in a given place, the answer has been “It’s ok…”. Not horrible, but certainly not ‘WOW”, or “This was incredible”, or “I have to tell my friends about this place”.

So, dear Raleigh residents, I appeal to you. Where is the good food in this place? Where is the noteworthy food? Where would an out-of-towner be a fool not to eat at?

Before you answer, my exacting criteria:

• I am looking for everyday places–not eat on your anniversary or birthday places. Besides, too many folks have recomended Olive Garden or Carrabas as places to go for those events… ewww!
• Which brings us to the next point–a good, memorable place to eat should not be a national chain. If I can have the same meal in the same surroundings in Toledo, it is not a memorable meal.
• I am not driving 25 miles to eat, so please do not recommend something in Durham or Chapel Hill. If I wanted to eat in Durham, I would have moved to Durham.
• It should not cost a whole paycheck to eat there. If my entree and drink cost more than a hardcover book, I simply will not eat there on a regular basis, no matter how good the food is.
• A great place does not EVER have a buffet. E-V-E-R.
• A great place should (duhh!) have good food.

I am begging you, dear readers, to recommend someplace I can eat in this town.  Specifically, I would LOVE to know where to find the following:

• A good Italian place. Preferably a family owned, non-chain Italian place. (Please do not recomend 2 Guys on Hillsborough–been there 3 times = suckage)
• A decent “home cooking” sort of place.
• A great bar (dark, quiet, no big screen TVs and whooping sports fans, long-term bartenders and no watery drinks)
• A diner (other than Waffle House). Preferably one that stays open 24hrs. Sometimes, you just want to be served bacon and eggs by a snaggle-toothed woman wearing a hairnet.
• Authentic (not tex-mex) Latino food.
• Sit down, (tablecloth, cloth napkins) Asian food.

Suggestions?

(Thanks to Prachi for the simile love…)

To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Christmas 1957

This has been making the rounds, but it is just freaking cool.

as real as it gets… on Flickr .

In Missisippi, some students were threatened with punishment, including expulsion from school, for saying “Barack Obama”. Sigh… (thnx J!)

Can you remember any other president in recent memory that someone would have, for free, done something like this and kept doing it after the election?

on Flickr – Abbyladybug