Preakness

Good news: James and I hit our Trifecta wheel
Bad news: We're not rich ($75 bet, $108.10 payout)

Better than losing money though.

Nunnrey is a Bia - Reason #24

Remember back in March when John mentioned the beginning of chicken wing madness?  No...here's a refresher:

• Feb 2008 - JT, John, Nunnrey, me embark on the 2008 challenge to visit 25 of the restaurants so we can have the wing parties.  Can read the details in my original post from June.
• Nov 2008 - I receive completed passports in mail from JT as documented here.
• Nov 2008 continued - I fill out the required forms and go submit the completed passports via certified mail for John, Nunnrey and myself.
• Dec 2008 - Everyone receives certificates for their wing parties which must be completed by March 31, 2009 (this is key)
• Mar 2009 - JT kicks off chicken wing madness with the first party in Minnesota (although he didn't report it to any of us).  John has his party the following week.  I have mine two weeks after that.

Which brings us to now.  

Backtoms: But James...looks like you missed listing when Nunnrey had his party.  

James: Oh, I didn't miss anything...Nunnrey conveniently waited until the last day of the promotion and was unable to have a party.

Backtoms: But why would anyone give up a party for free chicken wings.

James: That is a good question.

So if you needed another reason about why Nunnrey is a bia...here you go.

Job responsibilities....

Since James has decided to spread what I really do to people around the world, I figured it was time to come clean. Check the profile.

FYI...James told a young lady what I did and she actually believed him for a moment.

Comment Notifications Update

Maybe you care...maybe you don't.  Back in March I wrote about the problem with Comment Notifications not being sent out for all new comments.  It's still a problem and I've seen it complained about on the forums for this product.  But being that it's free I guess there is no rush to fix it.

We do now know what the problem is and why you'll see comment email notifications from me, John, Michael (maybe others), but not see them for JT, DP, LCA, etc.  The difference is that if your email address is shared in your Backtoms profile then any comments you post will send the appropriate email notification out to everyone.  If your email address is not shared, your comments will post, but they will not send out the email notification.

If your comments are always great and you want to make sure everyone knows about them, here is how you can make them work for you:

1. Go to the Backtoms site
2. Sign in (if you're not already) in the upper-right
3. Click your name/alias under the list of Contributors on the right-side
4. Click Edit Profile
5. Check the option to Show my email address
6. Save your profile at the bottom

If you want to remain as anonymous as possible of course you may not want to do this...or you can do what John did by creating an email alias specifically for Backtoms.  I don't care what you do, but posting the update since I said I would.

Ever Heard of Chicken Fried Steak?

Yesterday on my way home from work I was listening to some talk radio on Sirius XM.  One of the hosts was talking about his recent trip down to Texas (I believe the show is located in the New York area).  I didn't catch it all, but sounded like he must have stayed with a friend somewhere near New Braunfels (which is located just north of San Antonio).

I'll spare you most of the boring details I remember, but there were two things that he said I wanted to point out:

1. He had never had (or heard of) chicken fried steak.  He started making an issue about is it supposed to be chicken or beef...this is some crazy dish from Texas, etc.  The other guys on the show pointed out that he can get this "crazy" dish at several restaurants in their area.
2. Much like John, he had never heard of Twang.  He couldn't actually remember what it was called, but he saw lots of people putting the salt-like substance in their beer while tubing down the Guadalupe River.

Okay, I'll give him not knowing about Twang.  But not knowing about chicken fried steak?  If that is the hidden gem of the South that he made it out to be then people are missing out.  Maybe I should open a place in New York specializing in chicken fried steak, steak sandwiches (The Project style), and putting Twang in the beer.

iPhone Time Waster

I've been playing Lemonade Tycoon. It has some occasional annoying ads (I haven't bothered to check if there's a pay version), but at least it has a button to let you skip them.

Cruise = Good; Crooks = Bad

The cruise pretty much went without a hitch. Never missed a plane, didn't get left on shore in any strange places, and I was completely appalled by centuries old buildings and landmarks tagged with foreign graffiti.

I was also impressed with how smart all the little Italian kids were. I mean, only a couple of years old and they were already speaking Italian.

However, when we got home, we started checking our expenditures and having a weak dollar right now really puts a hurtin' on the ol' bank account. Anyway, as Lisa was checking her account she noticed a pretty hefty discrepancy on a check she wrote right before we left. The check was made out to the local paper for $26.65. When we got home the same check had cleared for $489. Apparently, when Lisa mailed it through her work, some one took the check out of the envelope, washed the ink off the check and rewrote it for $489. The dumb thing is that it was written out to a specific person with the memo line filled out with "rent payment."

Needless to say, the day after we got back, Lisa and I spent a good portion of it closing the checking account, opening a new one and filing a police report. So much fun, but at least the trip went well. Good thing we had enough money in the account so it didn't screw us while we were gone and good thing the crook didn't get too greedy with the forgery.