Everything is priced to move!

Screw you, rain. We're yard-selling anyway and doing pretty good so far.

Living just enough...

Curious sight from my recent trip to Virginia Beach: a not-too-shabby little town center area. Amidst the otherwise low-slung, sprawliness of the Tidewater area, this downtown area is home to several good restaurants, a comedy club, a fancy-pants performing arts center, a hopping night club and (gasp!) a very tall building.

One of the things that struck me most about the area was how easy it was to get in and out of by car while also being really welcoming to pedestrians.

Here comes the new boss...

What?

I don't want to wait in vain...

So, what better thing is there for me to do while waiting for my car to finish its check-up than go through ramdom photos on my phone and post them to the blog? Yes, I suppose I could watch a rerun of the hit CBS show NCIS with the other carless folks in this waiting room, but...um...no.

Here's a picture from my firat visit to Harris Teeter Saturday. For a guy who's written extensively about grocery stores, including a shameless love letter to Trader Joe's, you probably find it strange that it took me so long to visit Columbia's newest grocer. That's fine; I also find it strange.

Anyway, I share this photo only to point out the really thoughtful and really wasteful inclusion of a seperate heating system for the store that is dedicated to keeping shoppers comfortable in the frozen food aisles. Although it's certainly a nice touch, I can't decide if it's a step forward or a step back.

Some guys have all the luck...

Man, the Gateway building has awesome vending machines. No fair. All we -- the denizens of the Howard building -- have is a Coke machine that charges $0.75 for a $0.65 soda.

Over to the field for tackle football...

Woo-hoo! Football Day!

Seriously, good times, even though this may be the worst Ravens team of all time. On the bright side, I like to think that this is the year Ravens tickets become available and affordable again, but we'll see about that.

The big excitement about today's Ravens game is, of course, the debut of Mr. Ocho Cinco (the wide reciever formerly known as Chad Johnson). Say what you will about the guy, but I think his name change is probably the most brilliant thing an NFL player has ever done.

I mean, check out this shot from CBS's pre-game coverage and try not to laugh:


The guy's forcing everyone to this grammatical abberation of a joke seriously...awesome.

Bonus funny: Look at that picture...there's a ridicuolous caption in there somewhere, right? The closed eyes, Cowher's lips, the excessive lapel pins...it's all too much for me to process now. Perhaps during halftime...

I could not get enough...

Happy September! I was out driving around for work and found a little
piece of HoCo that I had never seen.

Here's a picture. Can you guess where I was?