When the women are away the boys will....cook?

Since Jerilyn is gone until Tuesday I thought it would be proper to cook up some "man food" around here. So I broke out the deep fryer and cooked me up some buffalo wings and fries. It's not very often that I use the deep fryer cause it sinks up the house so much, but I figured I'm the only one that will have to suffer. Once again I used the all knowing Joy of Cooking cookbook. They had the original recipe from the bar that actually invented buffalo wings in Buffalo, New York. The only thing that I could tell that was different was you use 2 Tbps red wine vinegar with the sauce mixture.

While I was at it, I sliced up a couple potatoes and made some fries to go along with the wings. Not too bad if I say so myself.

I'll leave you with a picture of something else us boys have been doing a lot of this weekend, sleeping.

OK...seriously...this isn't fun anymore!

Sorry to all of you who read this...I've been complaining a lot lately. I'm so tired of ice I could scream, I had classes canceled today AFTER I was all ready at school, and the dog won't go out to pee! Most of the time weather doesn't bother me, but for some reason obscene amounts of ice seem to affect the daily living a bit more (and for a bit longer) than some weather patterns.

Our area has been cursed this year with some of the worst ice I've seen in my entire life living in Springfield. Just over a year ago we had the worst ice storm our area had seen in more than 50 years, and this winter so far we've had 3 more less severe (but almost equally frustrating) ice storms. Here's some of my pics for today. My favorite is Oliver being a wienie walking on the icy grass, he looked disabled walking around (I almost felt sorry for him, he went from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. without peeing). I surely couldn't hold it for that long.

That's Missouri for ya

This picture was taken last Thursday when there was 4 inches of snow on the ground. Today (Monday) we are supposed to hit 71 degrees. By Wednesday we're supposed to be back to "normal" February weather with a high of 35. Right now I'm home sick with who knows what and my sinuses are so clogged I can't walk straight.

I love these temperature changes!

Post-Christmas Shopping

Today Jerilyn, Danny and I ventured down to the South Side shops here in Pittsburgh to see if there was anything worthy of our coveted after-Christmas cash. I had $100 to spend on some pants, so that was my main mission. The South Side is a redevelopment retail area that used to be occupied by all sorts of manufacturing along the Monongahela river south of the triangle in Pittsburgh, but was long abandoned by the decline of industrial business in the Pittsburgh area.

The first store I went to was H&M as suggested by my wife as a place to start looking. After about 3o seconds of looking around in this ridiculous array of trendy metro-looking mens clothes I decided that it just wasn't for me (as if the price tag wouldn't have deterred me anyway). The second store we went to was trusty American Eagle. I remember shopping in American Eagle when I was in college and it not being too unbelievably expensive, but I guess times have changed. I didn't see any single pair of pants in this store that were under $60. Call me a cheapskate, but $60 for a pair of jeans that in my opinion aren't even that great of quality is a little absurd. **Disclaimer** - I did find a pair of jeans for $30 on the clearance rack but they seemed like they were cut for some girlie man with skinny thighs.

On to REI. For the last couple years I've been shopping at REI both at the stores and online. I've always been impressed with their selection and quality of clothing (especially their house brand clothing). I went to the mens section and found 2 pairs of pants for 30 and one for 60 that has zip-off pant legs, now that's what I'm talkin' about!!! I walked away with 3 pair of good-quality pants for $120 that will probably last me 2-3 years. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't understand spending more for clothing that has no functionality to it other than just looking good.

So for all you guys out there looking for decent prices on good quality clothing, look no farther.