Tuesday, October 16, 2007

TV Dinners

I thought I'd seen it all but boy was I proved wrong!

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw my wife take a miniature TV dinner out of the microwave oven. For reasons we won't go into Morgan has eaten with us two nights running, complete with infant in tow.

And sure enough, the miniature TV dinner was for said infant! Poor bastard is less than a year and a half old and already the big bad world is feeding him fast food!

'nuff said!

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

The flag

Not far from Hooters[^] in Phoenix there's a flag shop. They sell all kinds of flags; not just US and US State flags but flags of the world.

Heino was on the prowl for gifts to take back to his family and his biggest problem was finding something you couldn't already buy in any shopping centre in Melbourne. I kid you not. When my wife Sonya was in Melbourne back in 2002 I took her through Myers; she was surprised to see all the teenwear bearing US flags. *shrug*

I thought it might be unusual to take back an Australian flag purchased in Phoenix but he felt that idea was insufficiently original. What he did buy, for me, was a car number plate bearing the Australian flag. Back in Australia you have to have number plates back and front so there's nowhere to attach a third plate. Not so here in Arizona; we only have the rear plate.



The curious thing about the plate is that it has the word Australia printed on the lower edge. It seems strange to me that someone felt the need to print the name of the country adjacent to the flag; surely anyone in the market for an Australian flag car number plate would already know what the flag looks like!

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Moonrise

over Northern Arizona.

[^]

Currently my desktop wallpaper.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

It's all over

Yep, Heino's gone home. Lucky bastard!

As you might have guessed, considering how I rattle on about food, the subject of cuisine was never far away. He did indeed enjoy ribs and some excellent steaks during his stay though I fear we were unable to convince him to give Mexican a try. No amount of protesting that what he knows as Mexican food back in Australia is as Mexican as I am was capable of turning the scales.

He did try a burger at Hooters[^]. Uh huh. Hooters. Knowing my aversion to American burgers I played it safe with the chicken wings but Heino was not deterred. He pronounced it pretty good.

But who goes to Hooters for the food?

A positive experience at Hooters lead to the inevitable disappointment, at Big Nose Kate's Saloon[^] in Tombstone. Truly vile food. Heino's face was a study as he ploughed his way through the burger. My shredded beef with BBQ sauce was a lot worse than it sounded and it sounded bad enough. He got his comeuppance twice over when, thinking to moisten the burger a trifle, he dabbed some Heinz ketchup over the top. I don't think he believed, until that moment, that I had not exaggerated the extreme sweetness of the stuff!

But if our burgers and beef were not quite up to scratch we were more than amply compensated with a large serving of ham, courtesy of the re-enactment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral[^]. Ok, I got carried away with the opportunity to continue the food theme. I quite enjoyed it.

Driving back to Phoenix from Tombstone, via The Thing[^] Heino promised he'd have a couple of Aussie meat pies for lunch when he got back, followed by fish and chips for dinner that evening. He also promised to send photographic proof, purely to underline the fact that it's been over two years now since I've had decent fast food.



I'm still waiting for the photo of the fish and chips!