Pillow Talk

Before I left the mighty Chancellor SFC I thought I should pass comment on the pillow menu.....

Here is a transcript:

The Chancellor Hotel offers high quality synthetic down pillows on your bed [four of them]. A firmer polyester fibre [I corrected their funny American spelling] pillow is located in the closet [walk-in]. We are pleased to offer the following additional pillows for your comfort. Please limit yourself to two items.

Real Down
All natural classic favourite

Magnetic Therapy
[Some hocus pocus BS about swelling, insomnia, improved circulation]

Buckwheat
Helps to sleep better and reduces neck pain, headaches, and lower back pain. All natural filling conforms to the shape of the head so the weight of the head and neck is evenly distributed and correctly supported.

Audio
[Yes you plug in your ipod and away you go]

Satin Beauty
Poly fibre desined to reduce pressure on facial bones. Silky satin cover helps maintain hairdos overnight

Linear Gravity
[uh what?] Non-allergenic, anti-microbial, with cervical support that has two different nexk rolls that offer gentle and firm support.

Snore-no-more
Reduces snoring to promote a deeper more restful sleep by elevating the chin from the chest, keeping the airway open.

5-foot-body-cushion
Perfect for pregnancy or recovering from surgery

Between the knee
Reduces stress on the lower back

Isotonic Memory
Space-age foam designed by NASA has a unique self-moldng characteristic. Reacts to body temperature keepign sleepers cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Bath
Fill with warm water to sooth neck and upper back. Suction cups to position in the deep tub for maximum comfort.

Eye
This pillow is a personal item and therefore is $7 and yours to keep.

White and other white noise machines available

Oh the Irony

Amazon deleted 1984 off users' kindles.

Food so Far

Ed wanted a hotdog league table. So far I have two cities tied on zero, nether has tempted me into a hotdog. The ones at Turner Field looked rank I have to say, although they may have been delicious, and none of the carts on 5^th and 6^th Avenue this afternoon and evening inspired me to partake in the frankfurter experience.

Thursday- No food other than British Airways- you want a review? Cottage pie not awful; banoffee pie awful, chicken sandwich not awful, crème cheese sandwich beyond awful, tasteless, textureless, banal.......

Friday- Blueberry muffin for breakfast in Peachtree Centre (possibly more to follow on downtown Atlanta), then pizza at Turner Field, out of 10? I'd give it -1. I don't think you should really be allowed to call it pizza. The beer (now here I can feel a league table coming on) Budweiser Select, now I am tempted to speculate how they selected it but it wouldn't be very edifying reading. Not a good mark for Turner Field on night one so far as food and beverage are concerned. All the beer at the stadium cost $6.75 a pint for those interested.

Saturday- Full house, standing room only at Turner Field, so I went to the club house where they served something called “Tomahawk” out of a tap. Said 'beer' I think it would be fair to say is even worse than the Bud. At least the Bud was in a can, stored in a vat of iced water (note to Edstock revellers James McNamara knows how to serve shit beer: very, very, cold), Tomahawk was passing itself off as real beer. I forgot I had a bottle of 1 year out of date Sam Adams in a seedy bar in the middle of an unofficial parking lot of Thursday, that was quite good considering.

The club house is a mighty and inspired idea; spread over two levels in right centre field it is a full table service outside bar with snacks and food in full view of the field. The view is outstanding, the food, uh... um.... my buffalo chicken wrap with potato chips was T in the Park Fajita challenging in value for money terms. The hands down winner in the ball park food stakes was the Smokin' Joe's (I believe) BBQ. I had a pulled pork burger with corn and potato chips. I'll mark each constituent separately, the burger with the pulled pork and BBQ sauce was MSGlicious, 9.5/10, corn on the cob- 4/10, potato chips 8/10, so pretty good all around, apparently I should have had the black eyed beans not the corn.

Anyway that brings me to New York and the point of this post (there's a point?); Bonne Soupe on West 55^th Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenue is great. The food was good and the service a combination of French and New York rudeness/efficiency- in fairness they were very busy. It was 5:30 and the last thing I'd had to eat was pecan pancakes at 8:30am in Atlanta, I had an hour until I had to head back to the Rockefeller Centre to start my tour and this place was filling up. More impressively the staff were eating in the restaurant at the bar. I dived in and took a table for one. As soon as I sat down a glass of water arrived, then a basket of bread and the glass of white I ordered. I chose the quiche, no sooner had I ordered than a green salad arrived followed by my slab of quiche Lorraine. Desert; crème brulee and a coffee, the whole bill came to less than 30 dollars including drinks and I was out of there in 55 minutes. Highly Recommended!

Jeff Franceour

Writing in Georgia- it seems appropriate.

Walter Cronkite died tonight.

Anyway, back to what I was going to write about; Frenchy, he swung at the first pitch he saw tonight and made an out. He did the same last night and ground into a double play.

Atlanta is full of 50% off Franceour shirts- here is an example I particularly like:


What you can't see and I didn't take a photo of because the woman in the shop thought I was crazy, is the John Rocker icon. It's still full price, nine years since he mouthed off and eight since he was traded- he's still full price though!

Blog-on

I thought the best way to keep in touch with the various people who are interested in how this goes would be to blog a little.

It might not be daily, but I'll try and post something up here with a couple of pictures too regularly.

If I set everything up correctly, it should also post to facebook.... and as Ed says in a previous post there will be Tweets over at http://twitter.com/simboid hopefully.

Anyway to get things started I thought I'd start with a whinge. Atlanta Hartsfield Airport has the weirdest baggage claim ever.

Got of the plane, queued for nearly an hour to get through immigration (you still have to fill in a green I94 form even if you did the ETSA thingy online- what's up with that?). Then obviously my bag was right there at baggage claim, excellent I thought. Then I proceeded through customs, easy..... But wait, what's this? I have to check my bags again to "enter the airport". Then I get the body scan treatment- hand luggage through a scanner- laptop out of bag- No bottles of water- etc etc ....... Then you walk down a corridor which is litterally 2 miles long, with a train you can take to speed things along...... At the end is a new baggage claim where you get to do the whole carousel shuffle all over again.

Now the good stuff- watched a spectacular sunset on the MARTA on the way into downtown. My hotel is literally right on top of Peachtree Centre station, and everything I was expecting. I have the corner room on the 16th floor. The view from one of my windows is due north.



I have a 32" widescreen tv- and free wireless internet. Oh and the shower is the size of Wales.

Its 10am, I'm getting ready to go out for something to eat and get me a new Braves cap.

I'm planning a day at the ballpark this afternoon- Turner field tour- Braves museum- batting practice- something to eat- pre-game ceremony (reason for the trip to Atlanta)- and the game- Jurrjens and Pelfry tonight.

There will be no hotdog league. I just don't like them very much, I wouldn't be qualified. I will rate ball park food generally if you like though.

Braves one last night 5-3, so lets hope they keep it up. I'll try and educate the locals into booing Francoeur, we'll see how that goes.