Tag Archives: rico smith

LIVE

bloghold.51


bloghold, subcategory = holiday, nanocatogery = BBQ

serial hook = there is no hook

commentary: Did the Memorial Day BBQ thing… Rico was over… Elise came by and hung out… the new bonus variable was our periphery friend Jack… *Is “periphery” the right word? We’ve known him for years – but our socializing was usually limited to either the bar or concerts.

Anyway we broke the four-year-long “we need to get together and hang out” sometime last month and had him over for the first time.

Great company… Jack edits textbooks for a living…. *he’s as brainy as that sounds…. Dry as the Sahara and cute as a bug’s butt.

Had more nice times over the weekend – but was a slacker and didn’t document anything. (head still up ass with work and bandwidth compromised). I’ll dig around my phone later.

LIVE

stripes


Our day off to bum-around for Kevin’s birthday started off by going down early to the arch grounds for Rico’s promotion ceremony.

He’s enlisted – so there wasn’t as much pageantry as you might expect… Couple of dozen service men showed, and a handful of civilians.

The ceremony was punctuated by what I guess is tradition: A loved one on one side and a C.O. on the other attach (with tape) the new stripes with a swift punch. Rico’s grandma planted more of a love-tap – but it was still enough to hold the new patch in place.

Later the “big CO” would catch Rico and deliver a line that I’m sure he’s said countless times before – as if reading from some sort of military informality manual… Nonetheless he still came accross as genuine and warm:

First Sargent, you’re out of uniform… You’re relieved for the rest of the day to correct this problem.”

*That’s military boss talk for “Congratulations… take the rest of the day off.”

We left Rico to celebrate with his peers and grabbed lunch downtown… Afterward we poked around at a few stores and found a couple of great artifacts… I’ll share em tomorrow,.. for now I gotta chicken.

THINK

thank god it’s red applebee’s


This last weekend will become known in history as “that first spring weekend when we ate like complete assholes.”

It all started on Friday night… Elise swapped her night over for Saturday so we could go see a play, (film at 11)… Instead Rico came over that night and somehow, (I’m not excactly sure now), we wound up at Casa Gallardo.

For the uninitiated – think local-mexican chain with a big corporate taste… *correction – I guess at some point they were bought up by a national conglomerate called “Real Mex, Inc”… That might explain the sharp turn down the “even more mediocre” path their food took sometime last decade.

If you’re from St. Louis, you probably fall into the same rut category I do: “remembers restaurant from childhood – and probably haven’t had a noteworthy meal there since either”…. yet… Stupid nostalgia beckons and you wind up going back at least once a year for another underwhelming meal.

This all set off a dangerous notion…

What if once a month we went to one of these *types* of restaurants?

The ones where the wait staff has a pre-rehearsed schtick for birthdays and come clapping and singing “That Song”… (I can’t find an MP3 or reference to it at this wee-ass-early hour…. Anyone’s Google-fu good this morning?).

You know… “Corporate” ones…. well… not *any* corporate chain…

It’s that T.G.I.F. / Red Lobster / Applebee’s vibe…. That sort of place that, (after Friday’s dinner and looking around and observing the tables around us), attracts the demographic on the other side of that culture-war fence everyone keeps talking about.

The notion was shot down considering there’s dozens of indie restaurants with great reputations we’ve yet to even try.

That won’t stop us next year from driving down Lindbergh and saying, “oh hey – why don’t we just go to Casa and get something deep fried and vaguely Latin” – oh look chicken nachos.

LIVE

blue-toof


I ate nothing but fish yesterday… Breakfast, lunch and dinner.. I think whatever my body was craving has been satisfied.

Rico, who we haven’t really spent any quality time with in months and months – came over after biz hours and hung out…

We sat the entire evening and just caught up… I made my first shi-shi capo-fruppo-fuckme drink using Darth… I just like espresso over iced milk so I had to guess on how to make “real” fancy coffee type drinks. Apparently the chocolate caramel cinnamon coffee frothy thing, (correct name anyone?) – was a hit – Rico approved, gobbled it down and we were wired for sound and running our mouths till nearly 1am.

Now… every-time we see Rico – he’s got a new gadget. I’d argue that there’s a pathology to this obsession – but then again – I’m the ass who owns a four-hundred dollar vacuum cleaner.. so I’ll shut up about that…

His LATEST gadget though completely freaked me out.

enlarge picture

I’ve said before that the only things that make me “feel” like I’m living in the 21st Century are Listerine Strips and WiFi networks… Well.. time to add another to the list… “Bluetooth” stuff.

When he walked in I noticed this rather large earpiece in his ear… to which I made a snarky Lt. Ohera comment and told him he’d look better with a beehive hairdo and moved on with babbling.. until… I noticed it didn’t have any wires on it…

Later when I got the demonstration I learned that this little earpiece communicates with this cell phone which he keeps tucked into his pocket…. It uses some language called “Bluetooth” which, conceptually, can be built-into in everything from things like his phone to toaster ovens.

I remembered seeing something that said “Bluetooth” in my laptop… so we set the phone next to my computer – I found the control panel to turn it on… it detected the phone and I suddenly could access the files stored on it.

It was at about that moment I got the techno-gitters and had to step away from the computer because… well… it was just that damn creepy. I mean.. cool… but creepy too.

I suppose I’m just being paranoid…. I can envision a near future where I’ll be wondering if my portable computer isn’t conspiring against me along with the microwave, my electric toothbrush and the paper shredder.

Can’t blog – I gotta go evaluate which kitchen appliances would be the most dangerous in the event of a revolt.