9/12/2010

5/5 stars

Ok. One Yelper let me hang on for far longer than was appropriate. That Yelper rocks (understatement). As did the event overall.

Free stuff. Much free stuff. Booze among it, shockingly enough. And shockingly good slow-cooked beef. Almost as good as home-made, even with feed-lot beef.

Yes, I'm being a bitchy twit. Can't help it when it comes to feed lots. Overall, the venue was fantastic, and, of course, Kathleen delivered despite exhaustion and general Ohio influences. (Um, OSU. Disqualifies Ohio in general.) The people rocked, both during and after. Kathleen knows how to keep the party going until it's done.

I admit that I *did* elide questions about RS232 level shifters w.r.t. a certain GT grad student (Jennie), but I think I (a poor software person) have a handle on it… Still looking for a source for single-pin female headers to make the whole issue trivial, but that has *nothing* to do with Yelp. Their "engineers" wouldn't… Oh, ok, I'll be nice.

(BTW: The orange bars. The pastry dough was frozen and based on vegetable oil. It's obvious. But that's for the venue to fix. And I will be mentioning the venue to GT folks in a positive way.)

Yelp tags: Local Flavor

9/21/2010

1/5 stars

This review is relative to other mass transit systems. No, really… Even BART, which regularly would leave me stranded underneath tons of rock or tons of water in one of the most geologically sensitive areas of the US.

MARTA, YOU SUCK!

Ok. Somewhere between 11pm and 12am, you shut down the Midtown MARTA station. There are times posted until around 2am. Sometime later you shut down the North Ave. station… Eventually I reach a station that's open, but the southbound platform is closed. Um. What? I find a MARTA "assistance" phone, and am told that I need to catch the train along the northbound side. Um. What? Sign? Anything? No? Really? At least *some* train will take me home, although I spend my time worrying that either my station will be closed (it's happened in the past, thanks) or that the train will just decide not to stop there.

Even with the threat of death at any time, BART at least stuck to its schedule of when stations are open. MARTA? Um, no. And if you're looking for pity about being so top-heavy in management, look elsewhere.

Yelp tags: Public Transportation

9/27/2010

1/5 stars

A vegan sandwich doesn't come with cheese on the sandwich and bits of ham scattered under the sandwiches.

Otherwise, this is as forgettable as food can be. The *only* good part is that it's not Papa John's. This will pass through my digestive system at a more leisurely pace, although I still regret eating it.

Georgia Tech needs better direct-billed catering options.

Yelp tags: Caterers

The senryū:

there are so many
things i’ve never accomplished
that i can’t miss them

Longer, free verse draft:

life
is it that breeze i feel
rushing past
shoving against
rudderless wakes

as massive ships barely controlled
shove past
so many small bits
just moving up and down
waves don’t move ahead

or even back
into memories
they only carry the present
to short heights and moderate depths
nothing outside

their amplitude
missing anything beyond
the immediately pressing
and being missed
for their ephemeral breath

mist that hides
depths and rip tides
dangerously pulling outwards
away from the wave itself
moving only one way

but the one way
constrains and binds and tears
into droplets
dripping in the air
as the one way breaks

unable to restrain
motion, depth, the worlds
pulling upwards and also
sideways both
forward and back

simultaneous
instantaneous
an explosion of forms
falling back downwards
into the same place

Not sure how I feel about either of these. Not sure how I’ll survive two weeks, either.