Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

A couple of weeks ago one of our customers in the jewelry store and I were talking after he picked up his repair. (Me? Talk? - a rare occurrence, but it happens.) Somehow we started talking about food and he starting raving about this Italian restaurant on Alpine in Comstock Park. He told me how they prepare everything from scratch and that it was a great place to eat. He even had a business card for the place and gave it to me. Julie loves Italian food, so I gave  the card to her along with my re-telling of the glorious review. Yesterday we went to the Auto Show (fell in love with all things Mini-Cooper, but that is another story) and Julie suggested we make the trip out to Amore. They open at 4pm on Sundays, we got there at 10 after - I naively thought we would be the first folks in the place. HA! There were probably 8-10 cars in the lot. What the???? My goodness, once we started eating it became clear why there were people there the moment the clock struck four. Since i...

Read about it at this link: J C Penney Puts an End to Sales! JC Penney is going to quit with all the bullshit! Amen - no more 50% to 70% or buy one get one for a dollar. They are just lowering all of their inflated prices by AT LEAST 40% and doing away with all the sales. I have been harping and whining about this for years - I have a least 3 posts on this blog about these fake sales. YEEEEE-HAHH! It is a happy day in my world. I am going to spend some MONEY at JCPenney.

Our daughter Ella has just completed her first complete year of owning and operating her coffee shop down the street from us in Lowell: Ella's Coffee & Cuisine  Ella is a culinary school graduate who prides herself on the handcrafted sandwiches, soups from scratch she offers along with the top shelf quality coffee she buys from local small batch roasters. She has some help in the baking department from her sister Amy - who is constantly coming up with delicious and tempting treats. Anyway - I am doing some end of the year book work and I decided to tally up where the money spent at Ella's ends up. First, let me thank each and every customer who has crossed the threshold at Ella's - we appreciate the way you have helped Ella's grow. One of our goals is to spend as much money as we can using local - Lowell based sources like Gary's Meat Market, Agape Coffee Services, etc. Our next choice is a regional supplier like Grand Rapids Coffee Roasters, ...

Here are some pictures for people who want to remove all regulations from Corporations. (Er, I mean to say "Corpersons" since the Soopreme Kourt made them equal to people.) China is not big on regulations, especially when it comes to protecting the environment. All we have to do is take a look at these results of unfettered corporate concern for people, water, the air, and the planet in general.  This lady is washing her clothes in a reservoir.  Here is the amount of coal dust collected on the back and neck of a worker after only a couple of hours. Oh yeah - the worker happens to be picking crops. Still wanna buy your vegetables from Club Club, Cost-Mart and Wal-Co or where ever you can get it the cheapest? Here is an industrial sewage pipe going out into the ocean. These yellow blocks of industrial crud are introduced into the Yangtze River. The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia - just short of 4,000 miles long. Anybody want to get a d...

If you are a fan of the Talking Heads, then you need to get a copy of the Chronology DVD. It has some great stuff from the early days of the band - video record of them playing in the mid-70s. Some of the high points for me are watching Tina gain confidence on her bass -you can see the difference a couple of years makes;seeing Adrian Belew crank out one of his twisted solos on "Crosseyed & Painless"; David doing some of his famous dance moves during "Animals"; the whole of "Burning Down The House" (recorded in '83 for the Letterman show) is tremendous, but I really enjoy Chris Frantz and Steve Scales doing what they do so well on the all-important drums. Speaking of Chris, his big smile is in full effect when they played "Life During Wartime" when they were inducted into the RnR Hall O' Fame. If you enjoy Talking Heads - you will love this Chronology. Get It Here From Schulers

As we were out running errands today, Julie and I ended up talking about Litehouse dressings in general and their Chunky Bleu Cheese in particular. We came to the conclusion that it is simply the best we have ever had - in a restaurant or bottled for sale. What more can I say about it? If you like Bleu Cheese, you owe it to yourself to try a bottle of this ($3.49 to $3.99) spectacular dressing. Delicious.