My wife Kelly had been singing the praises for Maggiano’s since we first met, but unfortunately it took us just over 2 years for her to finally take me there!

We went on Saturday night, and arrived at 7:00 PM, the place was packed, fortunately for us we had a reservation at 7:45 and there was a seat open in the bar. We took a seat in the bar area and relaxed while we drank some tasty beverages (mine was a Blue Moon Hefe, her’s was a Coke). At just about 7:45 our pager went off and we were quickly seating in the middle of a huge open room that was full of couples, families, and parties chowing down on Italian food. We looked over the menu and my eyes immediately saw the appetizer of the night, Parmesan Garlic Bread, that I didn’t know at the time, was served with some of the best marinara sauce I’ve ever tasted. The bread was perfect except for the fact that we ordered a full order that was way more then the two of us could finish and still eat the rest of our meal, so we packed the rest up to eat the next day. We followed the delicious bread with a half order Caesar Salad that was big enough for 4 people to enjoy. Then came our main dish… I was a little on the fence after looking through the menu, I had my mind set on two items that sounded good, one was a normal menu item, called Rigatoni D, which was described on the menu as; Rigatoni pasta, herb roasted boneless chicken, mushrooms and onions, tossed in a light Marsala cream sauce. And the second offering I was thinking about was on the specials menu, it was a Penne Pasta with Chicken and Shrimp, along with a light asiago cheese sauce and caramelized onions. I went with the later and. Kellly went with the Chicken Parmesan, which is always a good choice as long as they make it fresh. My meal was great, the bowl came to the table piping hot with the perfect look of baked pasta on the tips of Penne. I took a bite and enjoyed the mix of flavors of large stringy chicken pieces and medium sized shrimp. Unfortunately I was already pretty full from the bread and salad, so I only ate about 1/4 of my main entree, because I didn’t want to be stuffed. Kelly’s chicken consisted of 3 chicken breast halves that were lightly breaded and just slightly dark, probably from the mixture of frying the chicken and then baking it with provolone cheese and marinara sauce. The menu said her’s was supposed to come with parmesan chips, so either Kelly was holding out or she didn’t get them, but it was more food then any human could eat in one sitting anyway, so it wasn’t an issue. Along with our main dishes Kelly also ordered us some Garlic Mashed potatoes that we took a couple bits of, but weren’t able to make a dent in due to already being stuffed! So you may ask, what did you do with all this food after you were done? We’ll we did what any smart 20-30 something couple would do with it, we have them box it up and ate it for dinner the next night; which made for a fabulous Sunday dinner that recooked up well in the oven.

Now for a couple observations, our waiter was subpar, I was more impressed with the busboy, since he kept checking on our plates and table to make sure things were cleared or we needed our food packaged up; I’m not deducting points for the service, because overall it was good. The place gives Buca and Macaroni Grill, and probably comes out ahead in the long run, except for how busy they tend to be when you want to go just on a spur of a moment.

I highly suggest Maggiano’s if you are looking for a good, from scratch cooked Italian meal, but just be ready to make a reservation.

[rating:4]

Maggiano’s Little Italy
3333 Bristol St
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 546-9550

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This article pretty much explains my thoughts and feelings on the baseball card industry and why I don’t collect much at all anymore.  It’s hard to collect when it feels like the only reason you are collecting for is to try and make some money.  When I was a kid I collected because I love baseball, there were only a couple card companies, and each one only had one set.  Nowadays there are upwards of 50 sets each year and of course let’s not forget all the inserts.

A great essay about the baseball card industry « Wax Heaven
A great essay about the baseball card industry
Posted April 25, 2008

Wax Heaven reader and fellow collector Jason loves all things that are free and recently saw a contest that was giving away a Hobby box of 2008 Topps to the person who could write the best essay about why kids should start collecting baseball cards. His essay was pure genius, funny but to the point. I invite Jason to start his own blog or at the very least become a guest contributor to Waxheaven.com. We could use more writer/collectors like him. I am certain he could give Ben Henry a run for his money!

Below is the essay as submitted by Jason to http://www.sportscardfun.com:

“As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t anticipate winning the box of 2008 Topps. It’s not that I can’t effectively and articulately pen a response to the question at hand. I can. It’s not that I don’t want the box. Trust me, I do. It’s that my answer is controversial and may not be exactly what you’re looking for.

Kids shouldn’t start collecting baseball cards. They currently do not have a single reason to. And I don’t think it has as much to do with the competition for their attention as some might think. The Sports Card industry has become a convoluted mess of inserts, game used memorabilia, and endless variations. It is no longer a hobby for children in much the same way that video games are no longer made for 8 year olds.

The “targeted demographic” for sports collectibles are those guys that started out buying up Donruss with their allowance. Those that can afford the price structure that the hobby has evolved into. Who’s purchasing the new ultra violent PS3 games? Guys that used to play Super Mario while listening to New Kids on the Block. The kids that made these industries boom are all grown up now.

This creates another question. What made ME start collecting baseball cards as a kid? I have to answer that by saying that I know what made me, until recently, stop collecting. Price. Undecipherable variations. Bloated sets that made it impossible to “collect”. Professional grading. The magic has been lost in the marketing.

I am 28 years old with extensive computer knowledge. I have subscriptions to all of the major price guides to include Beckett’s Online Database. Yet, I have wrestled for over 6 months to figure out which variation I have of a 2007 Topps Co-Signers Hanley Ramirez. I pulled a Babe Ruth 2007 Goudey Immortals Jersey out of a retail box. My wife didn’t want me touching the jersey. When did the monetary value become more important than running my finger across a jersey worn by the Bambino? I attempted to copy and paste a list of all the Manny Ramirez cards in existence from Beckett into a spreadsheet. My computer crashed four times before I gave up. How could I even begin to create a master set of all of Manny’s stuff when 25% or more are all “One-of-Ones”

Why is there only one 2007 Upper Deck First Edition, yet you have Elements, Future Stars, Premier, Sp Rookie, Spectrum, UD Masterpieces, UD Black, etc. Tell me who that’s geared towards? Look at the pricing for these packs and then show me a kid that wants to spend their only $10 bucks for the week to get 4 cards. Card Manufacturers need to change their intent, not their strategy.

Finally, what made me start back? Almost a year ago, I opened my old shoe boxes to see what I could sell on eBay. As I sorted through the cards “one last time” I was amazed that I could identify the players on each card before I ever saw the name. Guys like Hensley Meulens, Bo Diaz, Luis Polonia, Jeff Blauser, Phil Plantier, etc. That is what made me come back home.

I don’t know that the industry, based on the question, can be fixed. I do know however, a 4 year old t-ball star sleeping soundly in his bed right now that is going to help me put together a hand collated set of ragged 1990 Topps sometime in the near future. I won’t have to market anything. I won’t have a strategy for convincing him of how fun it can be. I do have faith that he’ll understand the enthusiasm and the magic in my eyes. I trust that my son will hear the faint whisper of a hobby tradition long gone.”

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So last weekend Kelly and I ordered some new furniture.  We are getting a new couch, along with a media center and bookshelves from Crate and Barrel.  I really like the color of the things we got!

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It’s All Text! :: Firefox Add-ons

This is one of the coolest Firefox add-ons I’ve seen for awhile.  It will allow you to edit your text box in a text editor (such as Notepad, Wordpad, Word) and then send the text to the website you are adding content for.

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Apparently there is a new synonym for the word Gloomy according to my friend Ned as posted here.

nedesque - synonym for gloomy.

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For all your Pinkberry lovers…  Not quite all natural eh? :)

The All-Natural Taste That Wasn’t - New York Times

The All-Natural Taste That Wasn’t

By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: April 23, 2008

FOR a seller of “chilly bliss” and “swirly goodness,” Pinkberry has taken a lot of heat.
Skip to next paragraph
Armando Arorizo/Bloomberg News

Pinkberry uses three different sugars.

Pinkberry, a frozen yogurt chain, inspired a passionate following when its first store opened, in West Hollywood in 2005. Its “original” flavor is smooth and tangy, and tastes like nothing so much as plain yogurt with a small amount of sugar.

The company initially touted its product as healthy, nonfat and all-natural, but did not say exactly what was in it.

“It always seemed too good to be true,” said Christina Yeo, a graduate student, at a Manhattan Pinkberry on Monday. “That’s why people were so curious about it.”
After a class-action lawsuit was filed last year accusing the company of deceptive marketing, Pinkberry posted ingredients on its Web site. But that got little notice until the case was settled two weeks ago. (The company said the lawsuit had nothing to do with the posting.)

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So our vacation was terrific! The only problem was that it was too short, but I think everyone says that don’t they?

Day 1

I guess I can begin from the start and see if I can remember everything. We left for San Francisco at 4:15 AM; traffic was good most of the way up except for a 15 minute stop of traffic as the California Highway Patrol cleared an accident on Interstate 5 right at the exit for Magic Mountain. We arrived in San Francisco crossing the Bay Bridge at around 11:30. The weather was great, it was around 70-75 with just a little breeze, but if you know anything about San Francisco the weather is very unpredictable in the Spring… Fortunately we had called the hotel earlier and verified that we could do early check in! We arrived at the Sir Francis Drake hotel and were in our room by 12:00 PM. Our hotel was in the downtown area of San Francisco, so we were in the perfect location to use as a staging area to get, go, or do anything we wanted. After we unpacked we headed out to find ourselves some lunch. As we exiting the hotel we saw there was a coffee shop by the name of Sears Fine Food. We crossed the street and had some sandwiches for lunch, if you take a look at the pictures previously posted you can see a couple pictures from our lunch. After lunch we went walking around downtown. Kelly saw that were close to stores so we did some window shopping and ended up at the Lucky Brand Jeans store where Kelly bought herself a pair of Classic Rider jeans, which she declared she would not wear to work! We then relaxed in the hotel room for an hour and headed towards Market Street to catch the F-line to go and explore the Pier 39 / Fisherman’s Wharf area. We walked around Pier 39 and took some pictures of the Seal Lions and then we decided to check out the USS Pampanito, a WWII submarine on display. The sub was cool; it’s amazing how small it really was inside there. After that we had dinner at the Boudin Café, which unfortunately wasn’t a great experience because the waiter completely sucked! Lastly we took the Powell – Market cable car back to our hotel. As the sun was getting close to setting the fog and wind rolled in…

Day 2

This was to be our busy day. We had early bird tickets for Alcatraz, so we woke up at around 7 AM, cleaned up and headed to Pier 33 to get some breakfast and wait for our boat. It was cold, windy, and foggy; probably somewhere around 50 with 30 MPH gusts that made it feel lower. We were the first ones there and discovered there wasn’t anywhere to eat around Pier 33, so we walked about a mile down to Pier 39 and nothing was open there except for the coffee shop, we ordered something to drink and a quick bite to hold us over till lunch, and then walked back to Pier 33. When we arrived at Pier 33 to wait for the boat there were about 15-20 other people waiting now, we lined up and waited. Boarding was supposed to start at 8:30 but didn’t start till 8:50, and for some reason even though we arrived long before them, a large group of high schoolers from Oregon were allowed to board the boat before all the other passengers that were already lined up and waiting. The trip out to Alcatraz via boat exponentially added to the wind and cold as it appears that the wind on the bay itself is about 10-15 MPH higher in the open water, but we survived and made it to Alcatraz Island! It was nice being the early bird group because you don’t have to deal with big crowds because you are the first group to get there for the day. We explored the island and the prison for about 2 ½ hours, and headed back to the mainland. Being that we were starving we went to the Fog City Diner, which was just down the street to eat lunch. We looked over the menu and realized it was a somewhat upscale diner and it really didn’t have the type of food we were looking for, so we left. I had suggested to Kelly that sometime during the trip I wanted to go to this burger joint that I saw on the Food Network’s, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, called Joe’s Cable Car, so she suggested we go there. The only problem with this decision is that it was on the completely other side of San Francisco, the area most tourists never see, South of the I-280. We hopped on the F-Line to get back to downtown, and then we took the BART (subway), unfortunately we got off 1 exit early, so after we figured out where we were we went back on BART to the next exit. From there we had to take the bus about 1 mile. The only problem then was that since I didn’t have the exact directions with me we had to look around to find it, fortunately that didn’t take too long. At Joe’s Cable Car, Joe grinds his own meat, but he doesn’t fire his bad waitress who is a ditz and completely out of it, I have a hunkering suspicion that she is married to our waiter from Boudin Café, because they both were terrible at providing service. The burger was great though, but due to the circumstances of getting there and the bad service Kelly wasn’t that impressed with it. After lunch (@2:30) we hopped on the bus back to our hotel to relax before our next adventure. I told you this was our busy day; we also had tickets for the San Francisco Giants vs. Arizona Diamondbacks game. I bought awesome tickets online from a season ticket holder through Stubhub. We were just passed first base on the field in the 2^nd row! The seats were some of the best I’ve ever had; I got some great pictures of players, which look like I was right next to them. I wore my Dodgers hat and shirt to support my home town team, and some of those around me asked where we were from. I talked a lot to this one guy that has both Giants and A’s season tickets, he was pretty cool even though he gave me a hard time for being a Dodger fan. We left the game in the 6^th, because Kelly was getting cold and we had had a long day. Some people yelled at me that the Dodgers sucked while I was leaving so I tipped my hat to them to show my appreciation… We took the bus back to downtown and since we were still sort of hungry ate some food at Lori’s Diner.

Day 3

Vacation is all about doing things you don’t normally do while you are not on vacation, so we treated ourselves to breakfast in bed with room service this morning! Kelly said it was probably the most expensive breakfast she had ever ate, but we didn’t care we were enjoying vacation. Today was our drive around do, so we called down for our car and drove North over the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods National Monument to check out the tall redwood trees. It was pretty amazing that there is such a lush forest only minutes from San Francisco. After finishing our hike through the forest we went to Sausalito to eat at Fred’s Café, another burger joint. Another place with great burgers! After lunch we drove around Golden Gate Park. Kelly got scared at one point because on one of the roads out of the park there is a one lane tunnel, while we were waiting for the light to turn green for us to use the tunnel there was a couple standing near the light that asked us for a ride through the tunnel because pedestrian traffic is prohibited. We of course did not let them go with us, but Kelly was weirded out by the experience. We went back to the hotel and then back out adventuring San Fran via foot. I wanted to get a new camera bag so we went to the Wharf area to see what type of deal I could haggle at the camera stores there. I got my bag and then we took the bus up the hill to Coit Tower, if you looked at our pictures it’s the round tower that I took some pictures from. From Coit Tower you can get a fantastic view of the entire city. Then we went back to our hotel, via two busses. We cleaned up a bit and headed back out on the town. We took a bus to Little Italy to find an Italian restaurant that I read about in my Frommer’s book; unfortunately I didn’t realize that they were closed on Wed. so we went to another one that ended up being closed down! We were having really bad luck in Little Italy, but there was one more place that sounded good, Sodini’s Green Valley Restaurant. I’m glad the other places weren’t open because the food was fabulous, and there was a cool little record shop across the street we checked out afterwards. The record shop was filled with tons of stereo equipment and there were no records to be found, until we got to the back of the shop and realized there was a stairway leading underground to a basement that was filled with well over 50,000 records. The only problem was that the records appeared to be in no actual organization! This however did not stop me from finding a record for my dad that I knew he didn’t have, not bad for only the third record I flipped to. We then went back to the hotel and walked around the shops again. Kelly found a jacket she liked at the Ben Sherman store but she didn’t end up buying it, most of the other stores were already closed since it was getting close to 8:00 PM. We then walked over to this bar that someone on a message board told me about, called the Gold Dust Lounge, it was a great little place that were were able to sit down and order a ½ liter of Paulaner Hefe for myself and an Irish Coffee for Kelly, for only 8 bucks! After the Gold Dust we did my traditional pilgrimage to the Wharf to have a late night crab sandwich, which again wasn’t as good as the first one I ever had back in 2004, Kelly got some fried shrimp which were real good. We then went back to the hotel and called it a night.

Day 4

We slept in yet still ended up heading out to breakfast by 9:00 AM. We decided to end our San Francisco portion of the trip the same way were started it, going across the street and having breakfast at Sears Fine Food, where I ate 18 pancakes, but they were small silver dollar size Swedish pancakes, not huge ones… After that we went back to the hotel and packed up our things to head to our second vacation destination, Monterey.

(to be continued)

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