philly

Shopping at THE MALL

Saturday will consist mainly of an outing to THE MALL. If you can't fathom what I mean by THE MALL, maybe you're better off for not knowing. Lady needs some new duds and THE MALL is where she wants to go. And me, being her chauffeur, will take her there.

I don't like going to the mall, let alone THE MALL. Hopefully, I'll make it out alive.

I'm going to bring along my camera [as usual] to see if I can find some out of the ordinary mall shots in THE MALL.

Seeing the Big Bro

Lady and I are headed up to the Blue Bell / Plymouth Meeting area for dinner with my big brother who is in town for some sales training from Norther Jersey. Gotta find a decent place to eat to take full advantage of free eats. Any suggestions?

Never been up there before.

First Workout

I went to the gym for the first time using my new membership. I wondered just how much I could do in this first workout since, probably, 2000. Lady has been a member for a few months now and goes pretty frequently, now, we're gonna be workout buddies.

I started off in the cardio theater. I played ultimate just about every weekend over the summer, but I had not been running in quite some time. I hoped that I could make it over the five minute mark. I started off and felt pretty good. I wasn't going to be running a marathon or anything, I wanted this to be a warm-up / welcome back for my legs. I took it easy and ran at a decent clip for about fifteen minutes, enough to get the blood flowing to my muscles.

And then it was off to the weights downstairs. I took a lap of the five or six different rooms. I started out in the circuit training room and hit the shoulders and upper and lower back for a bit. Then it was over to another room, right under the basketball court, for the ab machine and I finished with a few sets on the military press machine.

And I do feel the burn. I'm sure it'll feel even burnier after I wake up. It's a good pain though. Reminds you that you're doing something.

I hope to head to the gym at least three times a week. Who knows if I'll get back to my six-minute miles, but I'd be happy with being able to just run at a nice pace for half an hour or so without dying after I step off the treadmill. Who knows if I'll get back to doing 135lbs. bench sets, but I'll be happy with getting my form down again and at least toning up a bit and maintaining it.

If you've never been to 12^th Street Gym and are interested in joining a gym in Philly, I highly suggest it. 60,000 square feet of space, tons of equipment and two free personal training sessions with new membership to get you acquainted. And if you'd like to join and get a little money off, I can be your referrer. I think you get a little off and I get a free dinner somewhere.

It's astounding how much gyms cost up in NYC. I think they're like $800 for six months. I think that's what my sister last told me. $500 for a full year of this awesome gym is a total deal.

Congratulations Lady!

Just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS! to Lady who was just accepted into Temple's graduate school program.

Vegan Meat

Lady is, for all intents and purposes, a vegetarian. I am a rabid carnivore who likes his steak medium rare and if it comes out medium or medium well, I'm gonna send that badboy right back. Finding places for us to eat has, for the most part, not been a problem. There's usually at least a salad option everywhere, but we try to do better than that.

Illy has been good to our split menu requirements and the place we love the most is Gianna's Grille at 507 S. 6^th St. I am in love with their BBQ Chicken Cheesesteak. We go there about two times a month and maybe an additional delivery order when we have some more money to spare. We just love it. Lady has tons of options to pick from and she's going to try to try all of the veggie/vegan meals they have to offer. I may just stick to my favorite through it all, I love it that much.

Friday night we took a trip there and Lady got the veggie meatball sub. After I had devoured my cheesesteak, I watched Lady finish her sub. I was interested, for some reason, as to what the fake meatballs tasted like. I picked off a less than bite sized piece and started to put it in my mouth. I'll try just about anything once. As I was putting it in my mouth, Lady said, "I don't think you're gonna like how it tastes," but who cares I thought, how bad could it possibly be if she loves it so much? BLLLLECCCCHHH. It was hoooorrible! It tasted like a foul rotten rag soaked in fake flavoring. I immediately spit it out into the napkin in front of me. Yuck.

I won't be trying that stuff again. While I'm happy that Lady is perfecty content with her choice, I'm happy that I like the taste of meat and I'll continue on my merry way.

Are there any meat eaters out there who like the faux meat?

Free Libray Lecture: The Movies Go to War

On Wednesday night, Lady and I went to a lecture at the Main Branch of the Free Library on Vine St & 19th St. The main speaker for the nigt was the Philadelphia Inquirer's film critic Carrie Rickey and the discussion was about movies and war.

The crowd of fifry or so people, most of whom were 50+ in age, we watched clips from The Longest Day, The Big Red One, Apocalypse Now and Platoon. We discussed various points of the films and the filmmaking process which was pretty cool considering she's a film ciritc for a major newspaper.

The next lecture we're most likely to attend is this one with author Chang Rae Lee whose Native Speaker set the literary world en fuego in 1995. I read it in college, but I remember little of what I read for academic purposes which is unfortunate.

Support the Free Library by coming out for these great events and much much more offered at the Free Libraries all across Philadelphia. And you can whine to your friends about how learned you are.

Messy and Picky Updated

Lady and I have finally gotten off of our collective lazy asses and updated our foodie site Messy and Picky. Maybe one of these days we'll get a domain name for it as well instead of piggybacking ontop of Lady's site. But I digress.

We've added reviews of:

• The Continental Midtown
• NYPD Pizza
• Pat's King of Steaks [really overdue]
• Taco House
• Valanni
• White Dog Café
• World Fusion

That's our eating out for the past few months. So take a click and see what we've got to say.

We'll be adding more reviews as we eat our way through Illy and we'll also be adding a comments/trackback section in the near future as well.

Got any suggestions?

Brendan @ Abeline

Went to Abilene at South and 4th last night to see Lady's buddy Brendan play a set.

It was freezing, but we braved the weather as they say and drove on over there after our lecture at the main branch of the Free Library on Vine St. More on that in another post.

I had never been to Abilene before. It's a nice joint with a stage at the far end of the street-level floor. Just big enough for a five-piece band and a singer or two. Brendan got up after a comedian who played to a dead crowd. I think everyone in there was there to see the "headliners" the One Nine Crew who were an all-white Roots wannabe like band. They were pretty good. But Lady and I were there to see Brendan.

I've seen him play two times now, once before at Tritone on South and 16th for Lady's birthday over the summer. I'm a fan. Armed with his gee-tar, he gets up there and jams out. I'm not sure if I can pigeonhole his style into one specific genre though, but it's good. I'd go see him again if I didn't know who he was personally and just happend to hear him at a bar I was at.

I took a whole bunch of shots last night, but the lighting was horrendous with no direct lights on the stage, just two sets of red and yellow lights on the back wall illuminating the Abilene logo. So, just a few shots in black and white up on my photoblog.

Dali Exhibit

It was all it was cracked up to be and more! Lady and I got to the PMA at about 2pm and checked our coats. We were on line for about 15 minutes or so and then we were inside. I spent the better part of three hours inside looking at everything there was to look at in the exhibit, but Lady had to run through it a little quicker because she couldn't take the crowd.

It wasn't as sparsley crowded as I had hoped. Even though it was a members' preview, it was totally packed. Save for a few spots where there were huge crowds of more than 25 people huddled around a piece that had an audio commentary. I just stood as close to the center of the piece as I could and let the people in front of me leave and I'd inch up until I was the one with the prime position. I can be pretty patient with things sometimes and I was yesterday.

I think that every major piece he ever laid hands on was on display here except for his The Disintegration of The Persistence of Memory a.k.a. that melted clocks one. There was, however, there was a piece derived from that piece which he painted during his period of obsession of nuclear and atomic energies; I forget the exact title of it.

It was amazing to see all of this work spanning 60 some odd years of his artistic career I think. It was very interesting to see his much leser known works: his non-surrealist works. His early experimentation with French impressionism. His incorporation of Cubism taking after his artistic fater, Picasso. His photo-realistic work. His portraiture. He was quite well-rounded. Dalí has always been one of my favorite artists. One of the artists I got you could say. He let my imagination toy with the images he presnted to my eye more than other artists. He and Escher let me be more involved in their work than most other artists out there, but that's just me.

Either way, this all-inclusive exhibition is a MUST SEE. No matter what you think of his art, he was, without a doubt, one of the most important artists of the 20^th century in particular as well as looking back in time. The exhibit opens up to the public on the 16^th. I'd suggest becoming a member and getting a free ticket to see Dalí with your membership. If you do go, I think it's worth it to take a day off from work and heading there in the morning through afternoon. I'd think that there wouldn't be as many people as a weekend.

Support the arts!

Pictured above is a shot of the PMA from the foot of the "Rocky Steps" and my hand holding the complimentary audio guide.

Dali is Here!

The day has finally arrived! I've waited with my Dalí ticket tacked to my bulletin board three months now and today I will go see the only U.S. stop of this monumental exibit. I'll be there at 2pm. Sweet sweet members preview. Smaller crowds for me and Lady. I'm surreally salivating to strap on that audio guide and spend an hour or two wandering through the head of Salvador Dalí.

If you join the the PMA now, you'll get to see Dalí for free. It's totally worth it.