Don't Back Down

Dropping into this unassuming strip-mall restaurant on a Friday night, we found one heck of a crowd. I mean they were absolutely slammed. Khan's, which is just a couple of doors down, had almost no one inside. So I either the food was great, Khan's is bad, or some combination of both.

We've been to Khan's, and the food there isn't bad at all, so we didn't know what to expect. What we did know is that NYPP, as the server's shirts proudly proclaimed, was absolutely hopping. So we decided to stay. Somewhat surprisingly, we found a table without so much as a wait. I guess everyone moved fast enough that it just worked out that way.

Read "New York Pizza and Pasta" »

At some point recently, the Google Reader has added the long-awaited (or long-desired) "Sort by Oldest" function. To turn it on, simply click the "View Settings" drop-down, and then "Sort by Oldest". This is available for individual feeds or the "All Items" view.

Though I've been using the Google Reader for a while now, I have to say that this is the main thing that was bothering me. There are a handful of blogs that I read where I just want to get the information in an oldest-first method, because I want to hear the first thing that happened to someone prior to hearing about the newest thing. Otherwise I get the last thing and have to figure out what happened previously, which is just a pain. This is perfect!

Yet another in the long line of strip mall restaurants, but different for two reasons. One, because the strip mall isn't your typical strip mall. Instead, it's the fancier type that is springing up everywhere, that looks more like a small village of shops. But let's face it - it's still a strip mall. Two, because it's Wolfgang Puck.

True, it's a Wolfgang Puck Express, but it's still a step up from McDonald's. Perhaps. If nothing else, at least in price. And certainly in atmosphere and selection. As to the food? That is a different story.

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Early Saturday morning, the phone rang and one of our neighbors said that they had two extra tickets to the Monster Jam for later that night, and asked if we wanted to go. Normally this would be an issue, as with two kids, two tickets doesn't normally lend itself to making things easy. But since one of them was grounded (for some reason or another), it actually made things a bit easier than normal.

In fact, if anything, it worked out better than normal. I mean who could have asked for better circumstances than that? One kid grounded, and then he finds out that he misses out on the Monster Jam? That's just awesome. And yes, I'm a horrible parent. But there are just times that I subscribe to the old-school theory of parenting, whereby there should be a bit of suffering involved. So with everything settled, we headed out to an evening of entertainment. Free entertainment, even. The best kind.

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Over the last four days, I've spent plenty of time getting up to speed on the latest offering from the boys in Redmond, and so far I'm reasonably pleased with it. It looks plenty pretty. With a few exceptions (the "setting up" dialog as you log in for the first time being one), the interface has a nice makeover from XP. But is it worth upgrading? That I'm not sure about.

The speed is nice, but to be fair, I'm running on a new computer too. So I can't really say if it's better than it was or not. Probably not. There's a lot going on with the new animations and the gadgets in the sidebar (which are neat, but mostly useless), so I suspect that if I tried to install it on an old computer, I would be really dragging. I've also noticed that I tend to lose Internet connectivity with some regularity - my IM client goes in and out every few minutes. Plus, driver support blows. Really blows. This is the one area that I absolutely cannot stand.

Read "My First Days with Windows Vista" »

Housed in an old Pizza Hut in front of (you guessed it) a strip mall along Independence Boulevard, this unassuming restaurant is probably one that you pass with some regularity. Independence is, after all, one of the primary routes through the East Side of Charlotte.

But if all you do is race by on your way into the city, you're doing yourself a great disservice by not stopping in, because the Hibachi Grill really has done a great job with what they have to work with (which is to say, not much).

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Several months ago, the Cook Out Restaurant on Albemarle Road (as well as several others in Charlotte) updated their signs to mention that they had been voted the favorite burger place in Greensboro (perhaps The Triad) for the last several years.

I can't say that I know the motivation behind this. Perhaps sales were down (though a recent comment on that entry says that they are opening 8 new stores in the next few months, so I can't imagine that sales are too bad. Maybe they just wanted a bump. I don't know.

But apparently it got under the skin of someone at the Wendy's next door, because shortly thereafter, they put up a new message on their sign that said something like "This isn't Greensboro, it's Charlotte, and we've been here for 20 years". I guess that told them.

Read "Albemarle Road Burger Brawl" »

I recently released MT-SPA which, despite the catchy name, does not provide massage services. Perhaps in a future release. No, instead this acronymically-named plugin will allow you to easily integrate the Snap Preview Anywhere™ on your Movable Type-powered site.

Snap Preview Anywhere™ (SPA) provides free link-activated preview images for websites worldwide! What does that mean to you? That you can provide your visitors with a pop-up window of what a link will look like, without them having to ever leave your site. These previews give your site visitors the ability to "look before they leap" when determining whether to click on a link. (via)

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On Saturday, the Charlotte Observer printed an article about the cost of groceries in Charlotte compared with other areas of the country. This was interesting enough, but what I found really interesting was the cost of groceries just within the Charlotte area.

For the article, the writer(s) purchased twenty items at four area stores. These four stores - Lowes Food on Providence Road, Harris Teeter on Central Avenue (now closed), Food Lion on Wendover Road and Bi-Lo on Park Road - yielded a price of $44.44 (Bi-Lo) to $49.27 (Lowes Food). All in all, not a huge difference in price, so it may or may not be worth your while to drive across town to save a dollar or two. But what was interesting was the sidebar about bargain shopping.

Read "The Real Cost of Groceries in Charlotte" »