KingLou Drops Science 2.0

discovery world - not so great. over crowded. Not finished. Real focus on the members and their special privileges like classes and labs and so on. Great for the involved parent or class but only so so for the visiting parent. I did see a kid learning to ride segway which I thought was pretty cool. There was also an aquarium built into discovery world.

Aquarium poorly marked and also unfinished. The giant boat that was suspended from the cieling that you could go on and work the ropes on was a big hit. So was aquarium although small. Mysterious 3rd floor "Pilot House" was not visited. Only accessible via he elevator and no one I asked knew what it was. I assumed it was either a restaurant or more naval navigation themed area. I passed because it was getting to be lunch time. So Ace and I went to perennial Milwaukee eatery "Ma Fischers". When Jodi and I lived in Milwaukee we ate there pretty much every weekend. It's one of the only good Greek style diners on the East Side and it's been there for as long as I can remember. I got a burger and Ace decided and actually ordered for himself some spaghetti. The real surprise was that my lunch came with a free cheese tortellini soup and that Ace actually ate quite a bit of it without any begging from me. His only request was that I remove the carrots, which is weird since he likes carrots. I didn't complain. I just kept giving him soup.

After that we headed to the Anodyne Coffee Shop. I tried to leech some WiFi from there but it was yet another example of the monetized hotspot. It appeared to be an open access point but when I opened my browser I got a splash page for WEBbeams cafe hot spot provider. I went in to grab a mocha but decided to just not bother with asking about the WiFi. I have made it 3 days without getting online in a major way and I have survived. Phew!

Went out to dinner with Kate & Bill (the couple that came to the beach this summer)at long time friend DJ Brooks restaurant "The Good Life" right down the block from where I used to live. Its a Caribbean restaurant and it's DAMN good. I got the Jerk Chicken platter and it was food that a human deserves. Then we went to Bayou which is just down the road and had desert. Our friend Bill's niece works there and she is a pastry chef. I had a great banana pudding thing. Turns out she didn't make it but that didn't matter to me. It was seriously yummy.

We came home to find my father-in-law passed out in front of the couch again, Asleep with remote in hand.

My in-laws were nice enough to show me their lovely x-mas card from the Bush family. I was informed that the cards used to have a bible passage in them but because the democrats complained it was removed. Opening the card revealed that there was indeed a bible passage. It was then pointed out that it was too small now. So small because the democrats had reduced the focus of Jesus on Xmas. I was also shown the lovely 2007 Bush Calendar the got which shows the retard-in-chief with kids and other bullshit. It came with a letter from Laura Bush thanking them for their important donations and of course with an opportunity to donate more. It kind of made me angry but what can you do. My Mother-in-law complained that the quality and size of the xmas card had declined. I suggested it was because they spent so much money on Iraq that there wasn't any extra for a nice card. Then I suggested that they should try borrowing more from China for next years card. These jokes were met with stony silence.

My father-in-laws modem also took a shit today. The last time I was here I suggested that he run an auto-update that kept popping up on his windows piece of shit. After we did it totally barfed and needed to be re-installed. Total fiasco. This time I moved some useless desktop icons to the trash and suddenly his modem starts to die. "What happened to my icons! My modem isn't working!" of course these things are connected. I was waiting to get the blame again but I was able to convince him to call tech support. Of course this meant I had to call tech support. They determined that the modem was actually 99% chance dead. So he wen and bought a new one at Best Buy and lo and behold it fired right up and he's back on the web and happy. Only then did he admit that the modem had been crapping out on him for two weeks.... Nice.

Milwaukee Condo explosion. So many condos and they all have one thing in common. The buildings are hideous. Just weirdly angular and plain in a gross way. They are also being jammed everywhere possible. I will say this about Milwaukee. Its quality of life has gone up by like 300% since we lived here. Stuff to do, things to see, it's pretty much amazing. Some kind of major re-zoning must have happened because it's great. Jodi still wouldn't live there unless she was forced at gun point but that has more to do with the past than the present IMHO.

Back to NYC day. We finally went to George Webb this morning and I had a delicious sausage scamble. Of course now I feel totally ill. I think it has more to do with last nights three beers and the rich deserts than the hyper good/greasy foodstuffs I just ate. Today my father-in-law's printer stopped working. Not my fault! I think he needs a total system upgrade. I of course would like him to get a nice new Mac Mini or iMac but instead he will probably buy something from Best Buy. Of course if he bought a Mac I'd be cursed with the tech support calls for eternity.