That's not a surgical mask.
The Battle of Guadalcanal: The Doctor Was There
Friday morning came and The Doctor's flight was so early he landed before I had left my house to get him. Not having eaten yet and being in the south, we went to Waffle House. Nothing special of course, but it's kind of a requirement. Back home, The Doctor and I are military buffs, and I have some Avalon Hill games from the 60s that were my dad's. We love them. I have one, Jutland, that is a naval game that has no actual board, you use your living room floor. We once played and wound up in the kitchen and never actually finished. This time we played one with an actual board, Guadalcanal, for a little bit.
Horse vs. Food
Then we hit the town. First order of business was dinner at The Vortex in Little 5 Points. I've been to Little 5 Points plenty of times, but never The Vortex. While we waited to be seated, some lady way to old to be dying their hair a non-hair color walked by, prompting The Dr to say "it's like someone dipped a poodle in toilet cleaner." The Vortex's signature burger is served on grilled cheese instead of a bun, and with a fried egg on it. You may have seen it on the Atlanta edition of Man vs Food. Neither one of us got that, because we like not dying. It was a very cool place, although they seated us upstairs instead of down in the room full of tacky decor. I'm just going to have to go back until I get to sit there. The Doctor had a buffalo blue cheese burger, I had the Cowboy Burger which has ham and BBQ sauce, they were excellent. I apparently had one the last Sweetwater 420s on tap, and so I switched over to New Belgium's summer seasonal, Skinny Dip. I recommend it.
The Dr.'s buffalo blue cheese burger. Yes, that's potato salad.
Mine had ham and BBQ sauce.
Metal Up Your Ass
We then moved to another great Atlanta night spot, Virginia Highlands, to meet up with The Canadian, Mouth Beard, The Road Warrior and Hat Lady, collectively The Crew. We went to 10 High for Metalsome, which is karaoke performed with a live band. Another new experience for me, although I did not sing. I am battling a nagging cough (I literally just coughed while typing this), maybe if I wasn't I would have sang. The Doctor did not either, although I tried to get him to sing as Sean Connery, he does a great impression. Some of the people there sang well, some not so well. Some huge dude sang "Walk" by Pantera, which had The Canadian, The Road Warrior, Mouth Beard and I pounding our fists and singing along, as were others. There was a group of women in front of us that clearly did not like the song and deferred their place center stage to allow us to headbang. Hey, don't come to Metalsome if you can't stand the metal. Someone requested Bohemian Rhapsody and then no showed when it was their turn. Even though it was a Saturday and a pretty packed house, I'm willing to believe that the band faked it to get everyone to sing along, which of course we all did. On the video with the lyrics, the background was the Muppets performing the song. Finally, one of The Crew was called to the stage. The Road Warrior had to stand there and wait as they fixed an equipment malfunction. Luckily for him he was pretty drunk, so no feeling of awkwardness over came him. Some guy who couldn't sing to save his life went on, followed by Mouth Beard, who was happy to follow such a bad act. A bunch of other people then sang, some of them didn't sing half the song even though the lyrics were right in front of them. Ah, alcohol. We were ready to leave unless one of us got called up, and then thankfully Hat Lady went up, immediately followed by The Canadian. They all did a fine job. By this time it was pretty late, so we called it a night. The Dr. and I passed out when we got home.
I Don't Think Too Many Dentists Go On The Coke Tour
Sunday we decided to do tourist things. After all, The Dr. is a tourist. We went to the World of Coca Cola first. I had been to the old World of Coke, but they moved to next to the Aquarium a few years ago. It's definitely for out of towners, but we had fun. First you you're taken to a large hall with all kinds ads, new and old from around the world. They ask people where they are from and one guy said he was from the Ukraine, and I was very tempted to reply "Ukraine is weak!" Then we were taken to small theater and watched a short animated film, it was pointless but very well done. Inside there were some nice exhibits of the history of Coke and various ads and bottles and cans and what not.
What a shock, this product sucked.
They make and bottle Coke right there, so we enjoyed watching the process. At the end of The World of Coke, you can sample all the various soft drinks they make around the world, divided up by continent. I kid you not, we saw entire families of Asians at the Asian station. Some of the sodas are quite good, for example I enjoyed the lemon soda from Bahrain. Some are quite bad. And then there's Beverly. Beverly is a drink sold in Italy, I pity the Italians that we sell them this product. The Doctor tried it first and said it was terrible. So of course I tried it. This was my reaction:
I want my mommy.
It was horrible. It tasted like chalk, or a gym sock. We got a kick out of watching people taste it for the first time. At one point I felt bad for the strangers that felt the need to try this foul drink and so I stopped a friendly couple from trying it. When they saw the reaction of someone else trying it, they realized I did them a nice favor.
You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
Then we went to the Aquarium, another place I had never been. Outside, the PA said that "a frozen shark is misunderstood." We agreed, because a frozen shark seems pretty self-explanatory. I have an irrational disdain for fish, so going to the aquarium was definitely branching out for me. I don't know quite why, other than they're incredibly ugly, they're disgusting when sold whole at market, and when I was a kid we took a field trip to the recently opened New Jersey Aquarium and they had an exhibit filled with some kind of bland fish like a trout and as we were waiting for our bus something went horribly wrong with the water circulation and they all died right in front of our eyes. Fish just don't do it for me.
But that's bland trout and bass like fish. The Georgia Aquarium has wide array of vibrant colored fish and sea creatures. We got to the Aquarium at about 3pm, giving us 3 hours to explore. I thought we might not have enough time, but we had plenty. We started with the tropical section. There were medium sized jelly fish that they lit with an ever changing colored light, giving me the opportunity to snap off a few cool photos:
The coral reef display is like an underwater rainbow, pretty much every color imaginable on a fish is there. Next we went to the river exhibit, which has among other things piranhas, eels, a white alligator, and one of my favorites-otters. The otters, all sisters, were extremely playful. I could have stayed there all day watching them go nuts. The cold water exhibit features huge crabs, sea otters, beluga whales, seals and best of all: penguins! As we entered the penguin area, an employee said "if you want to enter a staring contest with a penguin, you can, but the penguins will always win." She was right. This was all very cool, but it paled in comparison to the aquarium's crown jewel, Ocean Voyager. It's a huge--6.3 million gallon--tank that you pass through the middle of in a tunnel. It houses an unbelievable concoction of creatures. Walking up to the entrance there are a few windows to give you a tease. We looked in and saw a manta ray come right at us:
I feared I would be eaten.
It got even more amazing as we entered the tunnel. Whale sharks (which aren't sharks) hammerhead sharks, sawfish, sand tiger sharks, zebra sharks... and plenty more. Every time you looked up or over you saw something awesome. Then you come to a small auditorium with bleacher like seating, where you can see a huge portion of the tank. The glass, which is actually an acrylic, is 2 feet thick! They engineered this place beautifully, the sun light permeates through spectacularly:
Whale sharks are obviously huge.
It was an awesome, awesome time. I can't wait to go back.
They Should Tell The Owner That Beer Kills Brain Cells
For dinner we went to Thinking Man's Tavern in Decatur. It's a nice little restaurant/bar with board games to play while you eat and drink. Our kind of place. There's also books to read if that's your thing, and they had PBS on one of the TVs. We played Battleship, although since we were missing the actual battleships perhaps that particular box should be renamed. The Doctor took an early lead on me, knocking out my aircraft carrier right off the bat. I rebounded nicely by taking out 3 of his 4 ships in short order, but then as I searched for his PT boat he caught up. I finally found his PT boat, but since it's only 2 spaces long there's a degree of luck in getting it quickly, and I while I misfired around it, The Dr scored a hit on my lone remaining ship, also the PT boat. By a stroke of luck, I sank his on the next turn, giving me a narrow victory!
Victory!
One Ping Only
We returned home to a mini-fridge full of beers to finish up our board game. I lost big time, although some of my boys gave a valiant effort. We capped off the night with one of our favorite movies: The Hunt For Red October. The Dr.'s Sean Connery impressions are great when watching. At one point I thought I spotted the guy that played Mikhail on Lost, so we looked it up and my suspicion was correct.
Monday morning I finally got that french toast I've been hankering for. And that's all the news that's fit to print. Thanks for reading.
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