What Could Have Been

The following paragraph is a fictional account:

Friday, November 6th, 2009. I'm so excited that I wake up before my alarm clock. I shower and shave, throw on my favorite article of clothing, and rush out of my apartment. A gust of cold, brisk, wind hits me. I'm glad I threw a sweatshirt on under my favorite article of clothing because its going to be cold standing out in the cold today. My Derek Jeter jersey just wouldn't be enough to keep me warm. I jump on the subway, and head down to a ticker tape parade. My favorite team did it. The Yankees are World Series champions.

Now back to reality:

Why couldn't I have made things easy on myself and become a Yankee fan? As a Met fan, I face year after year of torture, depression, and misery (and this is what I like to do for fun in my spare time). Faced with a Yankees vs. Phillies World Series, it was really a lose-lose. I hate the Yankees, but I hate their fans and the concept of the team more. But I could never root for the Phillies, and so the Yankees it was.

When the Yankees won on Wednesday night, I thought I was going to be angry and bitter today when the city would swell with pinstripes, "legends", and and "tradition" for the parade. But being downtown today just made me sad. Seeing swarms of fans, screaming and celebrating in euphoria. Seeing kids holding their dad's hands, waving pennants, excited about the opportunity to see their heroes. They were truly happy. No amount of Yankee bashing could allow me to take that away from them. The Yankees won, and despite how they did it, their fans can call them champions.

Year after year, seasons fly by for the Mets. Players, managers, and GMs come and go. I keep thinking that this is our year. That it is all going to come together. But it doesn't happen. So all I can say to Yankee fans is enjoy number 27. If you are one of my peers, enjoy the 5th championship you've seen since you were 12 years old. I hope you enjoy and appreciate it, because despite what you have been brought up to believe, it doesn't happen very often.

12,003

I'm in awe. I blogged multiple times a week for a few months, and struggled to get to 1,000 hits. I stopped blogging, went and got myself engaged, posted about a bad restaurant, and next thing I know (2 posts and 4 months later) I'm at 12,300. How did that happen?!?!

It is a pretty amazing thing that so many people have stumbled upon this blog, most likely as a complete accident. I was writing somewhat lengthy posts before which soon became a time consuming and daunting task. I'm going to try to kick this thing into gear again, but scale back on the wordiness. Keep swinging by, hopefully I'll get some good stuff going again.

Worst Restaurant in the World

This is the worst restaurant in the world. I don't even want to elaborate because thinking about it makes me feel sick. Don't go here.

Triumphant Return

So Joshua's Jabberings took a little vacation over the past two months. I have two explanations for this:

1. I got engaged
2. I got lazy

From the beginning, I knew that if I didn't feel like writing, I wasn't going to. And with all the craziness going on in my life, I didn't really feel like sitting down and putting together a coherent post. But now I feel like writing again, and I'm ready to revive my Jabberings. Here is a high level overview of what has been going on with me since my last post (in chronological order):

1. I got mentally prepared to propose by going on two pre-engagement bachelor parties. I needed one last hurrah (or two) before proposing, so I went to Vegas for Scott's bachelor party and to the Bahamas (part 3) with the BU crew. To summarize the trips, I'd like to quote Alan from "The Hangover" (best move of the year, by far, maybe of my life). I love it:

"I'm a steel trap. Whatever happens tonight, i won't ever ever speak a word of it. Seriously. I don't care what happens. I don't care if we kill someone."

And so that's all you are getting out of me for those trips.

2. So I went and got engaged to the most special lady in the world. I don't feel like running through the whole proposal because I think the wedding website does a good job of describing how things went down. You can check our website out here:

Josh and Diana's Wedding Website

3. Along with proposing, I bought an engagement ring. This process went well, but it was still a traumatic experience. I plan on writing a detailed guide to purchasing an engagement ring on the blog, so stay tuned.

So that is pretty much it. Obviously other stuff has gone on, but once again my laziness is returning. Thank you to all of my loyal readers who have been hitting the refresh button to see if I wrote a new post every hour for the past 57 days. I appreciate the support.

Ode to White Castle

I don't like White Castle...I love it. I truly, absolutely, and completely adore it.

Some of my happiest memories from growing up are sitting in a car in the crime-stricken neighborhood of East Orange, pounding burgers from sleeves out of a "Crave Case" and listening to sports talk radio. Exchanges would go something like this:

Me: Pass me a burger
G: (Chewing) With cheese or without?
Me: Cheese
Joe: (Chewing) Regular or Jalapeno?
Me: Regular
Mad Dog: Vinny from Queens you are on the fan
Vinny: Benny Agbayani is a bum. I have a trade for you: Agbayani and Rick Reed for Manny Ramirez.
Mike Francesca: I like Inge a lot

And that is the way it went. After school, late night, it didn't matter. Sometimes we would just get a couple each to hold us over between meals, and other times it was our actual meal. We routinely finished a crave case (for those of you who don't know, a crave case is a cardboard suitcase consisting of 30 burgers).

This weekend when I was home, I got to have White Castle again. There is one in the city, but I save this for a coming home tradition. I even got to try their new pulled pork (not that great). The original cheeseburger is the best- little soft bun, steamed burger, minced onions, melted american cheese, warm ketchup, and a pickle slice. Man, do I love white castle.

City Restaurant in the Suburbs

It is fairly common knowledge that on the whole, city restaurants are of a higher quality than those found in the suburbs. Whether it is for the talent, the real estate prices, or quality of ingredients, this has always seemed to be the case. However, once in awhile, a restaurant of "city" quality can be found to the suburbs. This is what my family found with Osteria Giotto in Montclair, NJ. I have been hearing rave reviews about this restaurant from my family for months, so this past weekend when I was home I finally had the opportunity to try it.

First off, if you live in North Jersey, you need to check out Montclair as a food destination. I have been to some fantastic restaurants in this town, ranging from Thai to Italian. It has a college town vibe with some awesome culinary spots.

Osteria Giotto is on a quiet side-street right off of Bloomfield Ave, the town's main street. It has the feeling of a "Tuscan Farmhouse" inside, with high ceilings and red brick. Looking back on the meal, three things stuck out:

1. The restaurant is BYOB (something you find a lot in Montclair). Apparently, there are a fixed number of liquor licenses for each town in NJ, so the more restaurants that open, the more BYOB places there are. I love BYOB- it is cheaper and you get to bring exactly what you want to drink. Nothing not to like about this.

2. They serve one hell of a bread basket. Everything is baked on premises, and each basket contains a variety of breads including foccocia, a flaky coissant like roll, and olive bread (which I hate).

3. The pasta is fantastic. I had fettucini in a cherry tomato sauce with crab, lobster, and shrimp meat mixed throughout. The pasta is homemade, and the seafood was fresh and plentiful. Very delicious.

This is a restaurant I would definitely check out again next time I am home. I highly recommend it.

Winded from the Windy City

We came, we saw, we conquered.  Thanks to our gracious hosts, Cara and Andy, and the moral support of Diana, we were able to set out to accomplish all of our goals:  blues, baseball, hot dogs, and baseball.  It was a great Memorial Day Weekend... here is what transpired:

Music

After a great dinner at Tocco in Wicker Park, we headed to a great old-school blues club, Kingston Mines.  We got to listen to the sweet serenade of the Backstreet Candy Lickers (this was actually the band's name).  Cheap beer and solid music = good times.

Food

Sunday was officially the self-proclaimed food tour of Chicago.  However due to time constraints, this tour extended well into Sunday.  Regardless, some of the best food Chicago had to offer was consumed.  The tour began with breakfast at Eleven City Diner, a NYC-style deli that is unlike any place I've been to NYC.  Now I admit to being a NYC food snob, especially when it comes to pizza, bagels, and deli, but this was excellent.  I had the pastrami egg scramble, and this was top notch pastrami.  I was impressed.

Later in the day, we hit up Gino's East, a famous deep dish pizza place.  This was a failed mission of mine from 3 years earlier when I was in Chicago for training for work.  Lets just say our group was denied access due to the excessive fun we had at an open bar earlier in the evening.  Anyways, it was worth the wait.  I thought it was better than the original Uno's, which I went to last time I was in town.  I still prefer a thin crust slice, but this was authentic and delicious.

Sunday brought a much craved visit to the Wiener Circle, home of Chicago style hot dogs.

Without hesitation, I went for the one with everything on it.  I think I blacked out at one point, but I have a slight recollection of a pickle spear, tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, relish, cheese, and some other stuff.  It was truly excellent- Chicago knows hot dogs. Unfortunately, I did not find out about ordering a chocolate milkshake until after the fact.  Cara then brought us to her favorite Chicago food destination- Molly's Cupcakes.  These were better than Crumbs even though they were smaller.  Interesting flavors- I had ones stuffed with cookie dough, peanut butter, and caramel apple.

Sports

So I finally got to visit Wrigley Field, one of my lifelong dreams.  This is one stadium that I have always wanted to go to.  You cannot be a baseball fan and not visit this park.  Is it the nicest stadium?  No.  Is it the most enjoyable way to watch a game?  No.  But it is part of history, and brings you back to a simpler era of baseball.  There is no Jumbo-tron, and no fancy food- just straight up baseball.  The ivy walls are beautiful, and its incredible how small the park is- takes up one small city block.  It truly is a baseball cathedral though- one of the last of its kind.  I think that I prefer Fenway as it is an old-school park with somewhat modernized amenities, but I'm still glad I got to go.  I even got to see Mr. T throw out the first pitch and sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", a Wrigley tradition.

Great city and great friends.  It was a great Memorial Day weekend!