Happy New Year!

May you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2005!

A couple of quick restaurant recommendations

Marietta Diner, Cobb Parkway (just north of South Marietta Drive)

All their food is excellent, but of particular note are

• Seafood bisque - it has won awards, not to be missed! Fortunately soup comes with all dinner specials. I don't even know what the other choices are. Listen to me when I say Get the bisque! Out of this world!
• Desserts - they are all fabulous. And HUGE! My wife and I always split one ... and often have leftovers anyway. Today we had the Baklava Cheesecake. Baklava. Cheescake. What's not to like? Sounds great, right? Well, it's even better than that!

Cuban Sandwich Shop, Johnson Ferry Road (just south of Roswell Road)

Not bad. I had the traditional Cuban sandwich; my wife experimented with the Super Special, which came with pastrami (never had pastrami in Cuba) - the sandwich wasn't bad but there were too many conflicting flavors fighting for attention.

As far as sides, the sweet plantains were excellent - as good as I've had in any restaurant. The black bean soup, we could have left. Still, the place can be recommended. We plan to go back. I think that next time we'll try the plain pork sandwich, though.

Merry Christmas

Happy Festivus!

Happy Holidays

In Iceland, there are 13 Santas. Instead of bringing gifts, they take turns sneaking into town and creeping out the locals. The 13 Santas live in the mountains with their troll-like mother and her giant cat, which eats all the children who don't receive new clothes for Christmas. They party for 13 nights, and then things really get interesting. "That's when people come out of their graves," said Iceland native Hoffy Steingrimdottir. "Seals take on human form. And cows develop human speech." The moral of the story? It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe. The other moral of the story? They've got some good hooch in Iceland.

[Thanks to KU for passing this along.]

Welcome to Mama's!

We ate ate Mama Fu's Asian House for lunch today. It's Thai & Chinese food brought to you by the folks at Moe's who brought you burritos bigger than your head. You can't beat the price ($6.99). The food is actually pretty good ... not just good for the price, but downright good! My wife had Chicken Cashew Stir Fry (make sure to get it with the brown rice), and I had Chicken Pad Thai. We recommend both of these dishes highly. The Spicy General Fu Beef is also excellent.

Treo

Just bought myself a Treo 650 in order to replace my cell phone and PDA with a single device. Really nice new toy.