The advantage of having most Saturdays off, at least for me is that I can do whatever I want on said day at whatever leisurely pace I so choose. Today I thought I would get up early and take in a diner breakfast, which is about as close to the big breakfast fantasy of mine as I will get. I figured I would get up, get dressed and head to Pamela's Diner here in Oakland and sit down and eat and read my Willie Brown book.
The plan got off to what can best be described as an enjoyable start. I got dressed and since I realized I was cigarette poor, I would have to make a slight detour on my way to breakfast to pick up some smokes. Again not much of a problem the only question was where to get them, as I have multiple options on that front. I chose ye olde corner gas station, hoping that they would have a special of some sort, otherwise I would end up spending a little more for the cigs, about 50 cents, than if I got them elsewhere. The other potential advantage to going there is it is a path I don't walk as often, so I could keep a lookout for any change or soda points. I no more than got to the first street I was to cross and there was a empty 12 pack of Cherry Coke Zero (10 Coke Reward points) and a 24 pack of Pepsi (4 Pepsi Stuff points). I may be on to something with this new quest of mine, I hadn't realized how many people just throw that stuff away. I am finding more points these days than cash. Anyway, the gas station kicked into the early run on goodness, they had Camels at buy one get one free. Not my preferred brand, but it is not like smoking dirt either, that would be Winstons. We all have our lines that we wont cross, I will give up smoking before smoking another Winston cigarette. Buy one get one is cheaper than buying my preferred Marlboros and I am a cheap kind of guy, so I took the special and bounded down the street to breakfast.
I believe the phrase "Sorely disappointed" would come into play now. There was no real big breakfast type of special on the menu, no bottomless coffee that most places offer, instead you get one refill and worst of all they went all non smoking on me. What kind of diner is non smoking? I get if you are running a fast food joint or a high end establishment but a diner and cigarettes goes together like having sex with someone you barely know and the awkward moment of silence shortly thereafter. You just can't have one without the other. Instead I am paying slightly more than diner prices for 2 eggs, 3 sausage links and two pancakes and they don't even add toast with the breakfast. Now just what am I going to dip into my eggs I ask? How can you have a big breakfast (called The Morning After breakfast on the menu, though it is not much of a deal at 6.95) and not have toast be part of it? No toast, limited coffee, this is no morning after, this is a breakfast that I call a cab for because it most certainly is not spending the night. I should have went to Tom's Diner, a place I love, but didn't want to trek quite that far, but the food would have been far better and my coffee wouldn't have been cut off. Hell I might even been able to enjoy a cigarette after breakfast. That would have been awesome, a post meal coffee, a cigarette and my book. I might still be there if that were the case, instead I exited in relative short order and am here blogging instead.
Okay, enough with my stories of food, I failed to mention a few things the other day that are of merit. First, Ann Coulter says she will not only vote for Hillary Clinton, but will campaign for her if John McCain is the Republican nominee. I am going to go out on a limb here and speak for all Democrats when I say "Thanks, but no thanks". Your vitriolic diatribes against all things regarding the Democratic Party leaves me wanting to see you in a pine box rather than in a voting booth voting for anyone in my party. What were the titles of those books again? Hmmm, lets see, there was "
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans", "Godless: The Church of Liberalism", "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter", "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right", "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism", "High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton" and let's not forget the hatchet job you pulled on the widows of 9/11 victims. Yours is the type of support that we just don't need. You don't like your party's nominee, too bad, your party of everything that is right and holy picked him.I am also an Asshat behind, again not that I forgot the award, only that I forgot to mention it in the blog. You may remember a while back I posed a hypothetical question to the reading audience, simply, if you could kill one person knowing that you would get away with it, the proverbial get out of jail free card, would you and if so who would it be? I believe my answer was a rather lame one, that it would be the first person to irk me, thereby I would waste a perfectly good killing (as I type this, today it would be Ann Coulter, tomorrow it could be the screaming kid on the bus) on whatever bothered me at the moment rather than some long drawn out thought process on who the world would be better off without. The reason I bring this up is one Ann Marie Linscott. She too had decided on who she would like to eliminate, though she never posted it on my blog page to my knowledge. It seems that she wanted to eliminate the wife of her lover. I get that, I don't agree with it, but I get it. The difference being I was dealing in the hypothetical whereas Ann Marie was dealing in reality. So real in fact that she went looking for someone to perform the task for her. The problem was that she went looking on Craigslist, posting an ad for someone to "eradicate a female living in Oroville, Caifornia" and later posting how much she would pay upon completion of the eradication ($5000). That will get you some replies, usually by the local authorities. Since this isn't a hypothetical, there is no get out of jail free card for Ann Marie, but she does get this week's Asshat award. Well done!!!
Okay, time to enjoy the rest of my Saturday, as I hope you do as well.
Cigs are never on sale here. About the only difference in price is the store's own mark up. They are slightly more expensive from places like gas stations or 7-11's than from the supermarket.
ReplyDeleteI am also surprised you still have diners that will let you smoke in the restaurant.
Thats a sad sounding brekky my friend. Here a big brekky would consist of either sausage or bacon, sometimes both, 2 eggs either fried, scrambled or poached, grilled tomato, a hash brown and occassionally sauteed mushrooms. I guess this varies from place to place, but in my experience it doesn't vary that much. Oh and I left out juice AND coffee lol. Though the coffee isn't bottomless.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is also Angies Benedict with smoked salmon, which I would glady trade 1000 store bought brekkies for just one, anyday.
What kind of moron posts an ad, looking for someone to "eliminate" thier lovers wife? A truly deserving asshat.
I would tend to agree on most of the beakfast Lee, though I can give or take the juice depending on the bottomless coffee. I know that most places are trending toward non smoking, but there is something about eating in a greasy spoon that screams cigarettes. To Pamelas credit, while they went non smoking, at least they weren't mandated to, they made the decision based on business, it is just a business decision that I don't support. We have a chain here, Eat N Park, that has better breakfast offerings, including a breakfast bar, but they too went non smoking so I don't go there anymore, at least not on my own for breakfast, maybe if I am with someone, but not for just myself.. I haven't heard whether the decision for them is good or bad business wise, I know that they used to do a killer business when the bars closed, given they are open 24 hours. the only numbers I have seen as far as switching from smoking to non smoking locally are from a restaurant downtown, Palomino and they claimed that since switching to non smoking they are losing about $3000 a week in business.
ReplyDeleteOur restaurants, bars and clubs have no choice it's against the law. Bars & clubs went smoke free last July and some club managers I've spoken to have noticed a drop in their takings, especially from their poker machines.
ReplyDeleteThere has been talk on the news recently that several local councils are considering banning smoking in ANY public outdoor area of their district. At this rate we won't even be allowed to smoke in our own vehicles or homes soon!
Our state legislature tried to pass a smoking ban last year but nobody could agree on the specifics so it was shot down. Oddly one of the things helping smokers right now is gambling. Pennsylvania recently got in the business of slots machines, handing a selct few individuals gaming licenses (I think the number is like 6 slots casinos for the state) and they plan on using the taxable revenue from them to relieve property taxes as well as a bunch of other state wide pet projects. The thing is most gamblers like to smoke and those people that paid for a license (I think the fee just to get a license was $50 million) do not want to see their business hurt, nor do the people in the state legislature want to see revenue decreased if it will affect the amount of property tax relief that can be offered, yet at the same time they can't ban smoking in all indoor puiblic places without putting the casinos in that ban as well. It is theater of the absurd stuff that a political junkie lieks me finds awesome.
ReplyDeleteI am sure places like Palomino and Pamela's went ahead with their smoking ban believing that eventually it will be state law anyway, so in order to beat the Christmas rush they wen ahead and did it, I am just not sure that it is good for business and I would rather see businesses make this call than a state mandate.
If you're ever in Shawnee, OK go to the Rainbow Inn Cafe, 2 eggs, sausage/bacon/ham, hash browns and your choice toast (wheat or white) or biscuits (nice large fluffy biscuits) n gravy ($6.95) Coffee doesnt get cut off and they do have a smoking section. They're open 24 hrs too. Christian always gets the all you can eat biscuits n gravy no matter what time we go lol mmm too bad I have to work today and I'm broke lol I made a "date" with Christian that we'd go on either on the 9th or 16th for a Valentines "date" so I'll be sure to think of ya while I'm having breakfast! :-)
ReplyDeleteI think I would have walked the extra milage to get a better breakfast and service. Ok so I wouldnt have walked but there had to have been a bus going in that direction lol
Never ceases to amaze me how dumb people are. Why in heavens name if you're plannin to off someone would u post it on some public forum?? Well deserving asshat.
The way things are here at the radio station these days, they may ship me to one of our Oklahoma stations with my luck. I thought about going to Tom's Diner, I could have taken a bus or walked, though it would have been a decent walk, walking doesn't bother me all that much, but I just felt lazy Satrurday, and I am regretting my laziness now.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a diner, also called Pamela's Diner, I would have bottomless coffee and toast with all breakfasts...or at least some kind of carb to soak up the remnants of the night before.
ReplyDeleteYea, i'm late getting to this......
ReplyDeleteWe have a diner here called the "Hot Spot". It always makes me laff. The tagline is "if you want it hot, you know the spot". INNNNN-deed.
Anyway, the hotspot is a place you'd enjoy, UNTIL that is, a few days ago i went i there, and lo and behold........no smoking. I dont smoke anymore, mind you, but my company did, and we asked about it. The county did go "smoke free" in businesses other than food related a while back, even going so far as to limit how far from the door the "door smokers" needed to be. The point is that the reason they went non-smoking is because its all one room. If they had two rooms, or a way to seperate the rooms, there would be a smoking section. And i also know that it was a hard decision for tom, the owner, because i happen to know he has a twopackaday habit.
As for Anne Coulter, i think i speak for most republicans when i say "nanny nanny boo boo" and no thanks, we dont want her back. shes all yours!!! SUCKA
ooo, and that last chick, the craigslist chick was from around here, i think. Grand Rapids, wasnt it? It was on the news here.