Mmmm... Molten Cheese...

I've suddenly realized that I've been letting all of my food-motivated readers down, as I haven't commented on an area restaurant in well over a year. Let me amend that by telling you about a little place called Matt's.

A mere ten blocks east of us, Matt's is a small and simple bar. However, unlike most bars Meaghan and I actually like to go here. Why? The music's not too loud and the food is actually good. The philosophy seems to be, "We don't do a lot, but we're sure going to do it well." Take a gander at their menu:


Seven sandwiches (four of them burgers), french fries, and drinks. That's it. You might be asking yourself what the heck a Jucy Lucy is. Think of a double cheeseburger, but instead of laying the cheese on top of the beef wrap it up inside one giant patty. Cook until the insides are liquid, bubbling perfection and top with onions. Sound good? You're not alone. If you're ever in the neighborhood, we'll go grab some burgers.

Twitter ca 1748

I have a thing for US Presidents. Don't ask me why, but I can name them all in order and I find them pretty interesting. I've found that learning about them is a pretty nice gateway for learning about the history of this fine country through the ages. Most recently I've been hooked on the OG himself, Mr. George Washington.


Late last year, I read a book all about the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. While Jimmy was in town last month I picked up the first book in the "American Presidents" series at our favorite local used book store for $5. The bibliographies of these two works led me to discover that the Internet is a great place for armchair historians. You want to read the actual writings of GW? Blammo! Another fabulous reason to stare at my computer all day... awesome.

Anyway, that brings me to the title of this post. The first extant writings are a diary that GW kept while performing a survey of some land in the Virginia backcountry. Ah, for the days of private diaries... If Twitter had existed back in the mid-18th century, we would have ended up with pointless tweets like this:

"This Morning Mr. James Genn, ye surveyor, came to us ; we travell'd over ye Blue Ridge to Capt. Ashbys on Shannandoah River. Nothing remarkable happen'd."

Sheesh George! If nothing interesting happened, why'd you waste the ink? Incidentally, this made me learn all about the word ye. Did you know that when used in this context it's just a typographical shortcut for the word the? It should even be read and pronounced as such. You really do learn something new every day.

Could It Be... First Place?

Just wanted to get this out there today, since I might not have the opportunity at all in the future. Don't look now, but the Detroit Tigers sit all alone atop the AL Central after absolutely stealing a 6-4 victory against the Rangers today. Who knew Brandon Inge was a clutch performer?

We'll see what happens when the dreaded ChiSox roll into town tomorrow...

Visitors

So it turns out that among all of the things that slow down my post rate, having guests visiting us has to be near the top of the list. Why would you ever sit down and be anti-social at your computer when there are people to do things with? Unfortunate for this blog then that we've had people here 12 of the last 17 days.

For the entire last week of March, Meaghan's brother Jimmy was in town to visit the U of M law school. There's a good chance he'll be a student here come Fall. Many good foods were eaten (we finally made it to the Blue Nile), Mario Party games were played, we didn't go to a concert (Who knew pharyngitis was a thing? Huh, apparently it's just a bad sore throat.), saw Sunshine Cleaning, and we spent an afternoon at the Minnesota Zoo (quickly becoming one of our favorite places to go).

Three days after that, our friends Mike & Andrea from NY/NJ came to visit for a few days. They often make some time to see us when they're out this way for Mike's family in Iowa. Folks went shopping, we played some games, more good foods were eaten, vacation pictures were examined, and we saw a certain spoon without its cherry ('tis being cleaned).

We're currently in the middle of a week and a half respite. After that, Meaghan's sister Sarah is going to be making her long awaited visit to Minneapolis. We'll see how that goes. Incidentally, we'll be heading over to Chino Latino on Saturday with her to celebrate Meaghan's birthday. If any of my regular readers want to join us, just let me know. I have no idea if there's something already planned in the Roch for that guy who has the same birthday, but if there is and it's on Saturday I'm afraid we'll have to split the party.