Friday, August 29, 1997 -- Payday
My Aunt is still here, selling ads. I guess she's spending another day...		Azura had the day off (paid--WooHOO) today, so I suggested she pick me up for lunch. I finally got away from the Overstreet Mall for lunch for once. When I was driving, I used to leave downtown for most of my lunches, but since I've been taking the bus, I've stayed downtown. Of course that wasn't all bad. I started eating at Taso's a lot, and they gave me two free tickets to the Greek Festival next weekend. Taso's is what I call a "Charlotte Food" place. Charlotte doesn't have a great deal of ethnic food places. They have the obligatory Pizza Parlors, lots of Bagel places, and quite a few takeout Chinese. But, they don't seem to be any really good Italian, or Greek places. There are only a few really good Chinese places, and it sort of goes down hill from there. Of course we have lots and lots of chain food. Or as we used to call them in Greensboro: "Brass rail and Ivy" places. Those are fine, but were too pricey for my 7.50/hour job when I first moved here. [And i guess I still don't really eat at them now, either.] What Charlotte has in abundance, though are these little Greco-Amer-Ital places. They all seem to have "Entrees" that come with "Vegetables", and tend to have gyros, grilled cheese, country-style steak, and spaghetti on the menu. Not what we used to call a 'country cooking' place, exactly, since the range of food seems to be a lot wider. The other good thing about it, especially when Jason and Ginger were still living with me, was that these Charlotte food places all stayed open really late. Some even 24hours. It was a great place to go when you'd just got done coding for the night, around 2am or so. Taso's is like that, except it's in the Overstreet Mall, and closes around 5 with the Nationsbank Building. Still, though, they are open longer than any of the other restaurants--most of which close right after lunch. Azura and I ate Charlotte food today for lunch. Sweet tea, cornbread and 'vegetables' [evidently fries count:]. Over lunch she convinced me (didn't take much) to take the rest of the day off. We swung by work, got my briefcase and modem, and headed out. We ran errands, I got a rainbow colored beanbag (just a little small thought), and a new pair of shoes. We hit some bookstores, but I'm thinking about just doing amazon.com instead. In a few minutes we're going to take my Aunt to some Chain food, and see Extreme Baggage. I'll let you know if it's any good... Oh, and tomorrow: Geek Flea Market!!! Generic Joe's A Typical Male