Author: Josh

I just finished cooking some mini chicken fried steaks. I’ve been cooking too much chicken fried steak lately. El is going to have to start cooking her diet food for us more often.

Anyway, Mom and Dad gave me some beef when we were at their place this past weekend. Since my Dad has retired, I guess they’ve decided to make a little personal profit with their livestock (brangus cattle). A couple of weeks ago, they had one of the cows slaughtered. They gave me a roast, a couple of t-bones and one gigantic round steak. I thawed the round steak last night and made the CFS out of it this evening after cutting it down into smaller pieces.

It didn’t dawn on me until after I inhaled a couple of my little bite-sized golden brown slabs of beef… I’ve probably once looked that cow in the eyes. I probably once helped Dad in dumping range cubes into the trough to feed it. I probably drizzled worm medicine on its back a couple months ago. I probably looked at that cow one day and said: “You look funny cow, just standing there, being all cowlike, slapping your tail against your rear end to shoo away flies.”

So, we ate part of one of my parents’ cows tonight. It was kind of weird. It probably tastes the same, but there’s something that goes on in the old thinker that makes you think it tastes different. It’s like eating someone that you know.

I wonder how John would taste with some fava beans and a nice Chianti…

We just finished watching The Fast and the Furious, again. Elise likes it more and more now that she’s decided she has a crush on Vin Diesel. I just like the cars and the loud audio track. We’re both hoping that TF&TF II is as good. I’m hoping for motorcycles. Elise is hoping for Vin.

I went to an Excel I class this morning. I re-learned how to create graphs. Tomorrow morning I have an MS Access class. Better get to bed…

Monday. Nothing really happened on Monday. It was a typical Monday – got up, went to work, went through the motions.

Elise made shredded chicken taco salads for dinner. After dinner, El shopped for airfare to Minneapolis. She’s going to her friend, Kari’s house for Labor Day weekend. I don’t mind her traveling to visit her friends – I encourage it. I married a foreigner, so I knew what I was getting into. At this point, it’s too expensive for us to both travel, so my Midwest vacations will be temporarily limited to every other Christmas.

El was concerned that I might not want her to fly to Minneapolis. I don’t know if it was because she thought I didn’t want to spend the money on a plane ticket, or she thought I would be overly lonely while she was gone. Either way, without hesitation, she bribed me with a Playstation 2.

I’m really not sure if I should get the PS2 or not. I don’t know why, but part of me says: “Josh, be responsible, save your money”. The other part says: “Josh, you buy your clothes at Walmart, you haven’t bought yourself anything in a long, long time – get the PS2”. I’ve really wanted a PS2 since before they came to stores. How long has that been, two years or so? Mom always said: “Sleep on it – see if you still want/need it tomorrow.” We have the cash (no BestBuy line of credit needed) and believe me, I’ve slept on it….

Saturday didn’t turn out as hectic as I thought it would. My parents, Elise and I went to the Sealy Outlet Mall around 11 o’clock. Talk about a ghost town. I think this outlet mall was opened five years ago. On a tax free Saturday, the parking lot was 5% full. We went to the Reebok outlet and the Bass outlet to try to find some shoes for El. Both stores were having 50% off, going out of business sales. All but probably ten stores had been completely shut down. I don’t know how many store fronts there once were, but if I had to guess, I’d say close to one hundred. Now they were all empty facade clones with no “For Lease” signs. I guess Katy Mills has run this place out of business. I’m thinking that within the next few years, the Sealy Outlet will be littered with vendors selling day old bread, dented car rims, bison jerky and camouflage statuettes of the Virgin Mary.

We couldn’t find any shoes that Elise liked. We drove 30 miles east to Katy Mills. We drove into the parking lot and immediately turned around and headed home. The crowds were worse than the day after Thanksgiving.

We got back to my parents house, ate some left over lasagna and then we all started making more food. Elise chopped up a big watermelon, Dad started making ice cream, I started making a pizza and Mom supervised the operation. I guess it goes without saying that we had steak pizza for dinner and homemade ice cream for dessert.

I setup a spam filter on my Mom’s computer late that evening while everyone else watched TV and talked. El and I stayed up and watched a Saturday Night Live rerun after my parents went to bed. Pink was the musical guest the night that the show originally aired. What do you get when you cross Hanson, Linda Perry and a tablespoon of white soul? Pink. I wonder what I’d be listening to if I were still in high school – where the music that you listened to was half of who you were.

Sunday was a lazy day. I laid in bed for 2.5 hours on Saturday night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I got up on Sunday to eat breakfast, read parts of the paper and take a nap on the couch. I got up and glued parts of the Trooper back onto their respective locations.

Elise and I left my parents house and headed back to Temple at 2 p.m. We got home around 4:30 and I installed the 8GB hard drive that my Mom gave me. Elise started cleaning her closet. We went to bed around midnight. Now it’s Monday. Mondays……

Elise and I arrived at my parents’ house around 10 p.m. last night. We ate lasagna and salad. We all sat and talked for a while. Dad went to bed around 11, Mom and El sat on the couch and talked for another hour while I goofed around on Mom’s 48k connection. El and I went to bed around 1 a.m.

This morning we got up around 8. We ate breakfast and I went outside and watched some of those really big hairy bees suck the sweet juice from the flowers in the garden. They’re those bees that are the size of you thumb – the ones with the deep yellow thorax (I think, I don’t remember my insect anatomy) and the solid black abdomen.

I petted Simba and found a locust resting on a morning glory leaf. I went inside to get El so I could show her the locust. We went back outside and I pointed out the bug to her – he attacked her. He flew off of his leaf and hit her in the stomach. I guess it was because she hadn’t yet brushed her teeth.

We’re about to leave to go to Katy Mills (gigantic touristy outlet mall). It’s a tax free weekend. The women have informed us that it is our job as consumers to go out and spend money.

El needs a new pair of shoes (sheeesh). I’m hoping to make out with a semi-automatic rubber band gun so I can blast through the rabid shopping masses and get my place in line at a kiosk to listen to the new Lil Romeo and Jerry Jeff Walker compilation CD. Or I might opt to sit in one of those massaging chair displays to contribute in the spreading of head lice, butt weavles and scabies.

Friday evening I came home and started downloading my Danzig mp3s. It started pouring down rain outside. I mean it was coming down in sheets. Around 7:30, we left to have dinner with Carl and Mindi. After dinner, El and I went to Bum’s Sports Bar for a couple beers. There was a young band from Dallas playing that night, so the joint was packed with high school kids with big “M”s (for minor) written on their hands with magic marker. El and I thought that Philip would have had a nice time there… We had a good time anyway. We didn’t stay very long.

We got home a little before midnight and El talked me into going into our apartment complex’s communal hot tub. Having rained as much as it did ealier that evening, there wasn’t much heat to the hot tub. We stayed in the small, warm pool of other people’s germs long enough to get pruney, then headed home to get some sleep.

I woke up relatively early on Saturday to go on a much needed motorcycle ride. My plan was to get somewhat lost and eventually find myself in Killeen where I would stop at the local motorcycle shop. I got lost alright, and I wound up nowhere near Killeen. I’m used to getting lost in the hill country near Austin, where you can drive a good ways and you’ll eventually come upon a really nice neighborhood, a river, a golf course or a lake. Well, on this Saturday, I found myself coming upon blacktop roads, scattered mobil home communities, baron land occupied by leaf-eating goats and more blacktop roads. I tried to head towards what I thought was south by way of a secluded road. While still hoping to make my way to Killeen, I guess I had travelled far enough east to where I was greeted by an entrance to Ft. Hood. The posted sign deterred me from taking that route.

So, I turned around and took the same boring way back home. Since I had already experienced this route, I crossed my left leg over my gas tank and started singing to myself. I rode almost 60 miles. A boring ride, but a nice and therapeutic one nonetheless.

I came home to find that the guy in the mirror had a pretty nice shade of red on his face… I hadn’t expected to be out that long – guess I should have slapped on some sunscreen.

El and I spent most of the day geeking out in front of our respective computers, mostly to download mp3s. El decided that she wanted pizza for dinner, so we went to HEB and bought the ingredients I needed for a veggy pizza. Turned out pretty good – onion, tomato, bell pepper, garlic – jalepenos and green olives on my side. Then we watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday was a lazy day – watered the plants, I cooked some pork chops and potatoes, downloaded more mp3s, watched another movie.

So that was our weekend. Once again, Monday reared its ugly head too soon.

I saw a wreck on my way into work this morning. Some moron driving a blue, newer model Suburban flagrantly ran a red light at the intersection of Loop 363 and S. 31st. An old white pickup truck was this first off the line from the middle lane as the light turned green. He apparently couldn’t see the Suburban as there was another pickup truck to his left, blocking the view. I was two cars behind this truck. He pinged the passenger side quarter panel on the Suburban and knocked it halfway into the other lane.

I immediately laughed after I could determine that nobody was hurt. The light stayed green while everyone paused in the standard “I just witnessed a wreck” dumbfounded state. Traffic finally started to pass through the light. I went ahead and continued on my route to work. As I was passing the white truck that was the ‘victim’, an old man in tight Wranglers and a cowboy hat got out of his truck, looked towards the Suburban and exclaimed: “Bashturd” [image Will Farrell’s voice impression of George W. Bush]. One more good thing about riding a motorcycle – you can see, smell and hear everything. I didn’t look back, but I’m sure the old man’s good ol’ pickup truck didn’t even receive a battle scar. The Suburban – I’m sure that’ll cost a pretty penny.

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.

3. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.

4. Sex is like air. It’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

5. Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

6. No one is listening until you fart.

7. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

9. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

10. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

11. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

13. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

14. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

15. Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield.

16. Don’t worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

17. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

18. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

19. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

20. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

21. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

22. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.

23. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

24. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

25. We are born naked, wet, and hungry, and get slapped on our ass … then things get worse.

26. The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.

Our email server is down – AGAIN. Hopefully this should all be over with by the end of the week…. If not, I’m moving Janicek.com. I just wrote Cedant again and told them that I want an exact date and time in which I can expect my email to be back up. I’ve also requested a reimbursement for this downtime.

In other news, David just emailed me and told me he wasn’t coming into work today because someone drove into his house. See what Monday will do to you? I think we should just do away with Mondays all together. What do you think?… Three day weekends forever!

I was checking out John’s site today… He mentions how he is blessed because he has Christine. Now, my wife is great and all, but I really signed that nuptial contract so I could have Steve and Joanne.

I really feel that I’m blessed to have such great in-laws. I’d rather not even think of them as in-laws but more as my other parents. They’re always sincere, warm, loving and most importantly, inspiring. Steve emailed me today to say: “Judge each day, not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant.” Hmmm… Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Thanks Steve!

We just watched Donnie Darko again… Yeah, I’m still going to have to watch it a few more times. We watched Mulholland Drive last night… I’ll have to watch that a couple more times as well. When it comes to movie comprehension, I’m one Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl.

In other news, Chas emailed me today. He still seems to be curious as to what we ate at the Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe. I know what we ordered, I’m just not sure if I got the ingredients right. Chas fessed up and told me that he is a cook at Mardi Gras and wrote that what I described in my review “doesn’t add up”. He said that they would love for me to come back, introduce myself and try their food again.

Over the weekend I downloaded seven, yes seven, Danzig albums and one Nickelback album. I figure I saved over $150 in buying CD’s. Boy, did Shawn Fanning ever create a monster. I began using KaZaA a few months ago after I found out it had the same interface as Morpheus, and after Morpheus stopped working for me. I tried Audio Galaxy (I refuse to provide a link for them) for a while, but gave that client up after my desktop became inundated with pop up ads.

Luckily Mom offered me a 1gb hard drive… I’m running out of room. I have close to 1000 mp3s on my hard drive now. I don’t want to think about how many I’ve burned onto CDs as well. You should hear my friend Victor – he’s always swapping out 20 gig hard drives to make more room for his pirated music. The way I see it, if I can avoid paying out the wazoo for a CD, I’ll be more likely to go to a concert.

Have a good weekend – I know I will…

… they (Australia) celebrate Easter the exact same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we’re f***** up as a race. Anybody got any idea? You know, I’ve read the Bible. I can’t find the word bunny or chocolate anywhere in the f***ing book. Where do they come up with this s***? Why not goldfish left Lincoln logs in your sock drawer? As long as you’re making s*** up – you know – go hog-wild. At least the goldfish with a Lincoln log on its back going across your carpet has some miraculous connotations: “Mum, today I found a Lincoln log in me sock drawer.”
That’s the story of Jesus…

– Bill Hicks

Anonymous writes “I read your Restaurant reviews….what a joke!You must like McDonalds because you compare them with everyone… seem to know alot about McDonalds.And your so-called culinary experience is laughable.But far from funny.I saw you give rave reviews for some pretty bad food here in Temple… and then I saw you give some horrible reviews for the best in Temple.And your arrogance is almost vulgar.Where did you learn that from?McDonalds?I’ll bet you like the Roach Coach that goes from one work place to another too.

Note:

Chas,

Judging from your entries on my website, I take it you have some personal interest in the Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe aside from just being familiar with the menu?

I don’t remember the exact date on which we ate there, but it was one Friday evening this past May. I would not lie about having eaten at a restaurant, my wife and I have both eaten there. I’m sorry if I didn’t get the entree names exact, but it sounds like you would be able to tell what we ate.

And you’re right, I do mention McDonald’s twice in my total of 4 restaurant reviews. I guess I’ll have to go back and change one of them. For the record, I honestly can’t remember the last time I ate at a McDonald’s establishment – we don’t frequent fast food chains. Having said that, I hope you can appreciate the fact that we have somewhat higher standards than the super-sized combo meal.

Like I say on the default page for the review section of my site, I’m not a food critic nor a chef. I enjoy cooking and I enjoy eating in restaurants with my wife. I particularly enjoy eating at ‘Mom & Pop’ places like Mardi Gras. We just happened to have had a bad experience on this particular occassion. It’s comments like yours that help me realize that I should perhaps be more objective and more observative when I review a restaurant (or anything, for that matter).

If you do have a personal interest in this restaurant, how would you feel about arranging a time when my wife and I could come back to Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe and try the food again, as well as introduce ourselves? Like I said in my review, I would like to try the food there again seeing how this restaurant came highly recommended by friends and coworkers. I would be more than happy to ammend my review if the food warranted it. I’ve noticed that my review for “Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe” comes up at the #4 spot on Google.com. I would welcome the opportunity to change that into a good review and provide positive advertising for Mardi Gras.

Sincerely,

Josh Janicek

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 23:26:33 EDT
CRETCC@aol.com wrote:
> I would like to ask you when you visited Mardi Gras
> Seafood Cafe. I ask that
> you answer honestly, if you even answer at all. I am
> very familiar with the
> menu and what you seem to have said in your review,
> doesnt add up. I would
> like a little insight if you dont mind.
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> Chas

This is from Mindi’s signature file on Janicek.com:

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be meetings.”

Meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings. Working for a big company involves a lot of meetings. I’m not complaining or saying anything negative about where I work, I’m just making an observation. ;) But I don’t think I’ve ever been to as many meetings in my entire life. I remember back in high school, I was on every committee and in every club that I could join… I was extracurricular, extra busy boy and we didn’t have that many meetings. I think I was even in the Spanish Club, and I didn’t even take Spanish.

Speaking of foreign languages… ever see those bumper stickers that say “Jak Se Mas?” I always thought it was Spanish. Nope, it’s Czech. Means: “How are you?” I figure I’m going to start learning the basics in the Czech language seeing how I carry a Czech name.

Oh yeah – and thank you all for your concerns regarding my physical health. I’m feeling much better now. I don’t know what was going on with me. See – told you, if I just waited a day or so, I wouldn’t have to go to the doctor. Doctors are for wimps (unless, of course, you have Fibromyalgia) .

El just got back from her weekly meeting. She lost more weight. She’s lost 20 lbs total! Congrats babe, I’m proud of you!