You might be from Georgia if......

 

...you like BBQ ribs.

 

... you know what the Varsity is all about.

...you have a home AC unit mounted in your rear passenger window which is powered by your portable generator.

  ...you come home and watch this on the news after eating your dinner.

...within thirty minutes of recording this video you have been to the store and bought enough eggs, bread, milk, and beer to last for the next ten days.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

gf

gf's Top Ten Christmas Shopping Faux Pas

10. Mall managers not calculating human body heat into the Mall thermostat equation.

9. Inability to park straight. If you cannot park the SUV leave, it at home.

8. Salespeople grunting and pointing when asked for an item's location.

7. Glaring at me when when I refuse to sample your nasty Mongolian chicken at the food court.

6. Blocking an entire area with five kids, carts, and strollers so that others cannot shop.

5. Racing to beat someone to a cash register or a parking space like you are in NASCAR.

4. Letting your kid scream bloody murder while you shop in oblivion.

3. Cutting in line.

2. Using a Sears shopping cart to tote your kids and crap around the mall while you shop.

1. Only six of the twenty four registers are open when there is six million people in Wal Mart.

Restaurant Quantum Time Warp Part 2

Restaurant Quantum Time Warp Part 1, although slightly dull, has officially discussed the perception of time as it related to and individual dining in a a restaurant. This is crucial information to understanding Restaurant Quantum Time Warp (RQTW) Part 2. Yeah, I know, you hate homework, but it has to be done.

RQTW Part 2 is made of the stuff that most people really do not see, hopefully. To outsiders restaurants seem simple and straight forward enough. Cook the food, deliver it, and take our money. Close, but no cigar. Time warps should be a first year study in Culinary Schools. The cooking and cleaning is relatively easy compared to dealing with time warp issues. The entire restaurant world runs off of time warp energy.

Time warp activity has never been at a higher level than today during our current recession. Allowed time has shrunk to an all time new low. Do more with less. This is the latest RQTW that has taken place in the last two years. True, it has always been there, but it has recently been recharged and reactivated to wormhole time into a smaller space. The same amount of work must be done but within a smaller time space continuum. The friction of this faster working activity within the time space actually shrinks the time space; therefore less time is needed. The result being less monies spent on time. I call this Recession Quantum Time Warp Activity. Go fast, spend less time, spend less money.

Note that this really works better during a recession. You cannot usually generate a positive Recession Quantum Time Warp during a prosperous time. The result could be devastating if you would be so silly to try. I can hear Scotty yelling at Captain Kurk something about the Di-lithium Crystals.... . When this process is tried during a prosperous time the result is usually a negative warp energy which results in turnover (the worker quits). This most likely will not happen during a recession as there is no where else to go work. During the good times speed of activity can be achieved, but it must be stimulated through other methods, like money.

My head is starting to hurt with all of this quantumness.

Servers are the first ones to recognize Restaurant Time Warps, as they scream for the floor to be cut. When it is slow in the restaurant a server's brain is like honey in February. When there is low volume in a restaurant the servers go into slow motion. They steal food, they whine, the skip out on work, they whine, they start drama, and they whine. It is very important to schedule the employees to the needs of the volume of the restaurant's business or a fair amount of chaos will ensue.

The lower the volume of the restaurant the more negative the time space becomes. Time stretches, slows and then pretty much stops. If you have too many workers standing about time could actually go backwards. Send them all home too soon and the managers will be hearing complaints like " I cannot believe you don't have any more people working today!"  This is an old method to stimulate time into speeding up. Call "volume" in a restaurant, send everyone home, and you are sure to get business that regularly never show up. Tricky business this Restaurant Time Warp stuff is.

This is why a busy restaurant is a happy restaurant. No negative time warps exist. Time flies by and everyone's pockets are full of money. Everything is right as rain, sales are up, labor and costs are beautiful. Your boss and your accountant call you a genius. You can actually meander around smiling at your over staffed store, and for a brief fleeting moment bask in the glory of being a manager.

I think that this is all of the warping I will think of for a while. Keep your eyes open for it, and I promise it will be a while until I bring it up again. Thanks for reading.

gf

Big City Bread Cafe, Athens GA

  I got on the road about 6:30 to make the breakfast date with my daughter Ashley at 9:00 sharp. She was not pleased about the early start, but rising early is good for her I think. I plodded though the Atlanta traffic driving west on I-20 into the brake lit early dawn. It actually was a pleasant drive with very few issues. To those not from Atlanta that last sentence is a rarity. I turned left at Conyers and passed about twenty country stores, some offering "homemade biscuits", and soon passed through Monroe, and then onto Hwy 78, and then Atlanta Hwy.

   My heater, which was recently fixed by the experts at Firestone, was not working at maximum efficiency; this will require taking it back to have them fix it again. New should work better than that. This coolness would linger with me though out most of the day unfortunately. Finding a warm place to hang out was an issue all morning. The Big City Bread Cafe was not our first choice for dining as Weaver D's Delicious Fine Foods Automatic For The People was unfortunately closed. Yeah, I don't know what the hell is up with that name either, but we will just have to find out that information later. My feet were now at the lowest temperature all morning; I needed coffee ASAP.

  Ashley had an excellent Plan B. I was amazed that a Plan B could be as good as a Plan A, but euphoria soon dimmed as her lack of specific directions about the locations of these restaurants enveloped the breakfast event. Thank goodness for Google Latitude. Love you Ashley, mean it. She redeemed herself from Plan A by directing me (generally) to the Big City Bread Cafe. Parking was almost an issue but we squeezed in behind another SUV, and I pretended not to see the faded stripped lines that seemed to call out "No Parking Here". That was going to be my defense for a obvious parking violation, and I was going to stick with it.

  This was an odd red bricked square building with multiple doors and a cool ramp thing toward the back of the building. I felt as though there were secret doors leading into a mysterious inner realm of food production. When we were leaving, a nice smiling lady disappeared into one of these doors that was covered with hand cut out arrows, that was draped with burlap, and looked real artsy. She smiled at us with a "I know something you don't know" smile as she scuttled into the back of the building. We walked onto the patio that had Rosemary bushes surrounding odd birch looking trees that had Christmas lights on them. Nice patio furniture was placed throughout the patio. As we passed by yet another door which had "use other door" sign on it we saw the chalk boards.

  Chalk boards are an important sign of goodness. I think that if there are chalk boards being used in a restaurant or cafe everything is right as rain. I really did not read the chalk board, but that is besides the point. Chalk boards mean fresh food, usually. Sometimes it means food that is about to go out of date, but it mostly means that whoever is in charge is involved with the food and menu on a daily basis. It also means that someone is really good at writing on a chalk board, which is an art.

We entered, and I smelled the coffee. I was instantly happier. Somewhat distracted by the blue and white Christmas tree ornaments hanging from the ceiling, I smiled as I looked over this cafe. This was not somewhere where I had been before, and it did not remind me of anywhere I had been before. What a great feeling of originality, well, more or less. There was a red espresso machine which was nice as I don't really think I have seen such a bright red espresso machine before. The young lady that was running the counter was not annoyed by my overall annoying personality. She was very nice answering and smiling to all my questions. There was a helper running food who reminded me of a kind elf. Not the Santa type but rather the Lord of the Rings type. She was also smiling and obviously enjoying her job.

Being located in Athens GA there were the poster things posted everywhere under the counter. This is a standard operating procedure here. If you eat in Athens or in any college town and to not see these poster things, leave immediately. We were greeted by two nasty calorie filled display cases. I was going into a sugar high already. Cakes, cookies, and chocolate covered mice, and coconut polar bear cup cakes. We grabbed up a menu and started looking for breakfast. We both ordered french toast which was going to be allegedly dredged in a batter and grilled. Then we went about drooling over the goodies in the display cases. I bought a mouse and took him to our table which was marked with a tall skinny chrome marker with a number 7 attached to the top.

We settled into a booth and started enjoying our hot beverages. I glanced at the thermostat; it was set at a disappointing 65 degrees. Still trying to get warm I sipped my coffee and took great pleasure in the black painted heat and air ducts (not so much heat, mostly air), and the black burlap squares dotting the ceiling to reduce the noise echo in this old building. Simple light fixtures and simple tables made this dining room actually pleasurable. I ate my mouse.

Soon our breakfast arrived delivered by the Elvin Princess. We were both shocked at the French Toast as it did not seem as dredged as the description. I was pleased that it looked so simple. It came with two ounces of Maple syrup which was portioned out into a souffle cup. Decorated with one lone strawberry this was a perfect breakfast. The bread was cut on a long bias, and stacked on top of each other, with a slight dusting of powdered sugar. Not too sweet, not over sugared. That in and of it self was amazing to me. There are a lot  places that muck up French Toast. These folks have it figured out. Even though it was a bit pricey ($7), I did not care one iota.

Well, I was nosy and snapped a few pictures of my neighbors breakfast when it was delivered. They were quite pleased that I took a picture of their eggs and biscuits. It looked delicious as well. I did think about asking for a bite, but I restrained myself. On the way out I had to purchase another mouse, a mini cheese cake, and a coconut Polar Bear for my wife. The mouse was the best.






You should check out this place when in Athens.  gf