Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Earlier this week, I was in a Half Price Books near Hamilton, OH, looking around. A few things caught my eye -- a book on Jung, and maybe a CD or two. But I walked out of the store empty-handed. I rarely do that. I always feel a need to make a purchase in any store I walk into, otherwise I'll be looked at as a shoplifter.

But looking around at home, I see that I already have plenty of books, CDs, DVDs, video tapes, record albums (!), etc. I may not have all that I *want*, but I have what I *need*.

I think it comes with the territory, but many science fiction fans are collectors. The spend huge amounts of money to amass large collections in order to impress their fellow fans. The problem is, when it comes time to sell the collection, or parts of it, they will probably receive less than what they put into it. It's not a money maker -- it's a money loser.

Back in 2006, I had to do an inventory of my estate -- all my possessions -- and calculate their value based on "fair market rate". How much would it cost to replace everything, either new or used? My estimation is that fair market rate is approximately 10% of retail. And some items of mine don't exactly fit that pricing formula. While my Minimoog might fetch a lot of money on EBay -- I've seen some in great condition go for more than $3000 -- I have no plan or intention to sell mine.

Since then, I've put less emphasis on buying "stuff". I may still buy CDs and DVDs, but I'm not adverse to buying them second-hand. I used to worry about germs and contamination. I still do, but not as much. I'll still run an antibaterial wipe on the discs.

I should also thin out my various collections and sell what I'm no longer interested in. Even though I'll get a pittance for them, someone else will have the opportunity to enjoy them.

Last week, I talked about a family vacation to the gulf coast of Florida in the summer of '75. In this installment, I'll cover the second trip to Florida, in the summer of '78.

We left on the morning of July 5, 1978. My sister chose to stay at home this time. We took the same route down -- I-90 from Buffalo to Cleveland, I-271 to bypass Cleveland, I-71 through Ohio (taking I-270 around Columbus), and I-75 from Cincinnati to St. Petersburg, FL. I forgot what cities and motels we stayed in on the way down. Someone mentioned "Days Inn" to my dad, so that's what he looked for. Once again, we stayed at our aunt's place in Pinellas Park. And this time, the car -- a '76 Chevy Malibu Classic -- had air conditioning.

( We didn't do as much of the touristy things as we did in '75. )

I've already talked about subs and pizza here. Now I need to cover the third item in the "holy trinity" of great tavern food: chicken wings.

Having come from Buffalo, I know chicken wings. I know all about their history -- how they were first invented at the Anchor Bar in 1964, and spread through the town like wildfire. I can't remember when I first had them, though -- probably high school. But I've grown to love them. And you'll notice that I don't call them "Buffalo wings".

When I return home to visit family and friends, I try to go to a wing place and have some real wings while I'm in town. My first choice is usually Duff's in Amherst, but I often can't find a parking space there.

In college, a good friend and I used to frequent Rootie's Pump Room, in Getzville, for a meal of wings, fries, and a pitcher of Pepsi. Even if we used a coupon, we'd get another coupon to use for our next visit. But Rootie's is no longer there.

When I first moved to Dayton in 1989, I found a little hole-in-the-wall place called the L.C. Wing Company, in Kettering. The owner was an expatriated Buffalonian (same as myself), so he knew how to cook wings "the right way" -- drop them in the deep fryer for about 12 minutes, take them out to drain, put them in a bowl of melted butter and Frank's RedHot sauce, close the bowl, shake it up, and serve. Unfortunately, the business went under a few years later.

( So where do I usually go to get my wing fix? )

Ealier this week, I talked about the sub shops in town. Now, my attention goes to pizza.

I came from a town that had lots of mom-and-pop pizza shops, many excellent local chains, and a few national chains. Here in southwest Ohio, were there aren't a lot of people of Italian descent, the national chains appear to dominate, but a few local chains and some standlone places stand out.

For the national chains, we have Pizza Hut, Domino's, and a couple of Little Caesar's.

Some of the local and regional chains here, in alphabetical order:

Cassano's. A local family-owned chain, which used to be called "Pizza King" before I moved here in '89. They're one of two places in town that cut their pizzas into tiny 1" or 2" squares. That alone was culture shock to me. I was used to wedge-shaped slices. One of the locals told me, "I can hold my pizza with one hand and my beer in the other."

Cousin Vinny's. I suspect the name was insired by the movie "My Cousin Vinny". I've yet to try their pizza.

Donato's. This chain, based in Columbus, has a tasty thin crust pizza, and tangy sauce.

The Flying Pizza. Some of their pizza chefs will toss the dough in the air and spin it, hence the name. Decent New York style pizza. And New York style service, too.

LaRosa's. This chain, based in Cincinnati, also serves up spaghetti and dinners at their locations. Personally, I think they put a little too much sugar in their sauce.

Marion's Piazza. The local favorite. On the walls are photos of famous actors who dined here while part of the summer "Kenley Players" troupe. I love their "super cheese", which is a deluze pizza with extra cheese. And they cut their pizzas into tiny squares as well. And note: they're cash only.

Marco's. The new kid on the block. Don't think I've had their pizza yet.

Noble Roman's. It's been several years since I've had their pizza. There just isn't one that's convenient to me.

Papa Murphy's. They make it, you bake it. This results in a slightly less expensive pizza. But I like it. And there's on e close to me.

But since I often eat pizza alone, I look for places that sell by the slice. My current local favorite pizza joint does just that. Johnny's, A Slice Of New York, in "downtown" Centerville. The owner, Johnny, is from New York City, and is very personable.

The car is still somewhat out of commission. It's still driveable, but I'd prefer not to do so. When it do, there's a whole lot of bumping and griding in the engine compartment. I suspect there's something wonky with the steering mechanism. And now it's affecting my braking capability.

So I spent the week at home. I probably saved a little bit of money by not needing to buy gas, or going out for lunch. There were a few times I had friends pick me up and drop me off. In the meantime, I'm eating what I have at home, in the freezer, and in the canned goods section. I think I need to keep two weeks' worth of food at home, in case I get stranded.

But I didn't get that much done on the decluttering front. I did some filing during the State of the Union address on Tuesday night,and did some data entry for a couple of spreadsheets I maintain for myself, but that's about it. My goal was to have 5 carloads of boxes going in to storage this week. I think I had only one carload.

And it looks like next week will be the same way.

So, I returned to Epic Loot Games in Centerville for filkertom's house concert this evening. It was a great show. I got to forget my troubles for a few hours.

During the break between the two sets, I looked around at the games they had available for sale at the store. Naturally, they had a lot of the current edition (4.0?) of the Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks. I used to play D & D in high school. But there were people in the games club that didn't want me involved in their games. Mark, Richard E, and Bob were all juniors, and Richard R was a sophomore. I was a freshman. But Ed, a senior, didn't let that stop him from having me in his D & D game. (Thanks Ed!)

( There was another game I played back then, along with sisters Sharon and Karen, and a few other folks: Cosmic Encounter. )

Haven't seen very much activity on LJ in the past few weeks -- either posts by other people, or comments to my posts. I know people have been moving away from LJ over the last year or two.

So...where is everybody?

You know the plush fuzzy dice they sell at auto parts stores? Not exactly my thing -- d6's are way too common. I wanted something that said "gamer": a pair of fuzzy d20s (icosahedrons -- 20-sided dice) for years. And I finally found a pair yesterday at Epic Loot Games in Centerville. Made by toy Vault, they almost resemble spheres, but can be used as d20s. They're hanging on my rear-view mirror now.

They're also available at thinkgeek.com -- Here's a picture.

I would mind having some of the plush Angry Birds. I can lob them at my cubicle mates, if they were into good-natured fun and playing around while getting work done.

Earlier today, khaosworks posted a note to his Facebook which had links to three articles in Escapist Magazine about the past, present, and future of Dungeons & Dragons, also known as D&D.

This brought back some fond -- and not-so-fond -- memories. I first cut my teeth on the original D&D, back in 1978 -- high school for me. We had spirit-master copies of the original three rule books. There was a nice article in the Courier-Express about the wargame store in town, The Articles Of War. But the rest of the folks in the war games club in high school didn't want me in their group or their games. So I found other people to game with.

Then in 1979, basic D&D came out, in the box with the blue book and some cheap polyhedra dice. (The edges and points on those dice wore and chipped quickly.) And I remember riding the bus to Ulbrich's (a bookseller and office supply store) in University Plaza one Friday night in the fall of 1979 to buy the first edition AD&D rulebooks (which I still have). I never bought the AD&D 2nd Edition rulebooks, or any books from subsequent versions. Nor did I play any of the later versions.

I also started getting into Game Designers' Workshop's space-based RPG, Traveller. I bought whatever rule books I could find. But I never found anyone to play with. So the rule books sat around, unopened.

The collector in me would like to complete the set of rulebooks I have. But that's something that's low priority right now. I found some lists on Wikipedia that I can use to inventory what I have, and what I need to get to fill in my gaps.

What I'd rather have is the original D&D rulebooks and supplements in electronic format. If they're PDF files on either a CD or DVD, they'd be much lighter to carry and much easier to transport and store. I'd also like to get back issues of The Dragon magazine, the original Traveller rulebooks, and back issues of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society. I know the Traveller stuff is available from Far Future Enterprises. But the early D&D stuff? Unknown.

Years ago, around Christmas time, my uncle Yano -- that's short for Sebastiano, and he was a good friend of my parents, hence the title of "uncle" -- would make an appetizer out of marinated octopus ("polpi" in Italian). I think he used olive oil, lemon juice, and some spices. I remember it being a little tough to eat, but it was delicious.

Not many cultures eat octopus. As far as I know, it's eaten by folks from southern Italy, Greece, Spain, and Japan. (Sushi bars have sliced octopus, which they call "tako".)

I've had the recipe for years -- or what I think is the recipe -- and I want to make it for myself. The problem is, where do I find octopus? None of the seafood markets around here (Kroger, Meijer, Cub Foods) keep it in stock. And whatever octopus they sell in Detroit gets tossed onto the ice at Red Wings games. (It commemorates their 1952 winning of the Stanley Cup in 8 games. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Octopus for more info.)

I'm considering a trip to Jungle Jim's in Fairfield sometime next week. I'd go today, but I'm a little short of cash.