Latest Blog Posts
Local Business News
I just recently discovered Matt Olberding’s Biz Buzz blog over at the LJS. Looks like it’s going to be a good blog to keep an eye on. For example:
Kohl’s is coming to 27th and Yankee Hill. That’s big news for southsiders like my mother who would willingly drive across town to the current location (84th and O) in an ice storm if it meant catching a good sale.
Also, Matt is reporting that a new tenant on Southpointe’s east side will require moving some current tenants, including Office Max. Why in the world would Office Max be willing to move? Presumably, the new tenant is a biggie. A commenter on Matt’s blog suggests it could be south Lincoln’s long-awaited Best Buy. That would be huge news. Unfortunately, all that new retail activity, though good for neighboring businesses, could be a disaster for traffic in the area.
If the Council Won’t Do it, The People Will
Victor Cobalt thinks Lincolnites should be able to vote on the question of whether City Council members should be forbidden from holding contracts with the City. If he can get 5,000 Lincolnites to signal their agreement with a signature, we’ll see the issue on November’s ballot. I do happen to agree with him. I think it’s a good question for the people to answer, even though I myself am not completely sold one way or the other.
Would you sign the petition?
Theaters for Sale?
Thanks to the folks at Star City Scene I see that the Rococo Theatre is for sale for a cool $7.9 million. Is anybody surprised?
More interestingly, they’ve also started the rumor that Lincoln’s Douglas Theatres screens have been sold to Marcus Theatres. If true—and since there’s pretty much zero evidence to support the rumor at this point, that is a big if—I wonder if it could signal the beginning of the end for Lincoln’s protectionist movie theater policies?
Good News for Youth
I know a lot of local youth were disappointed when Back to the Bible’s Edge64 closed. Now, it sounds like Campus Life will reopen the center at 6400 Cornhusker Highway as Campus Life North. Back to the Bible is donating the lease and all of the equipment.
No word yet on whether there will be any goldfish.
NU Newz
-The Husker women qualified for the NCAA tournament as a #8 seed. They’ll play #9 seed Xavier on Easter Sunday. If they do win they’ll most likely play Maryland, one of the 4 #1 seeds. I’m thinking NU exercises their tourney daemons from last year (losing the 8/9 matchup) and gets the W. It’ll end there though...unless Maryland is upset by the #16 seed Coppin State on their home floor. (Drop a little trivia for ya here, while no mens #16 seed has won a game in the big dance...one #16 team has won a womens tournament game. Answer inside.)
-The Husker men picked up a #3 seed in the NIT tournament and will play Charlotte on Wednesday. I can really see the Huskers going all the way to New York, and if they get some breaks there way, maybe win it all.
-The football team is getting in a bit of trouble off the field in Bo Pelini’s first year. Andy Christiansen the big one. This needs to be put to an end quickly. Spring practice is about to begin. Wake me up when the real season starts
-The baseball team, mired in several off the field incidents, has played VERY well so far this year. The team traveled to Stanford to start out the year and came back 1-2. And now they have reeled off 14 straight. It hasn’t exactly been against the best competition. But the huskers have picked up a 3 game sweep against Kansas State to open up big 12 play and got one today against Arkansas. Against the modern day father of Nebraska baseball, Dave Van Horn who made his first return to Nebraska since leaving the program he built.
An Exhausting Puzzler
What is this list? Try to figure it all out without using external resources.
- Site of Tarzan’s home?
- Paved with sweets, perhaps?
- Lincoln’s Mason-Dixon?
- Former trolley route
- The high road
- Lower number
- Lincoln’s first lady
- Score!
- William Henry and Mr. Ford
- Face cards, often
- George W’s town
- Tiger beetle’s home
- A fortnight
- O’s partner
- Driveway to the legislature?
- Nothing unusual here
- Sherlock’s arctic beach?
- Paved with platinum, perhaps?
[Update] The more I think about it, the more I realize this is probably Pretty Dang Difficult. Thus, I think it’s only fair that the person who figures it out should get a reward. Scratch that, I’ll give two rewards: one to the person who correctly figures out the most clues; and one to the person who figures out how the eighteen items are related. Hmm, what should the rewards be ... how ‘bout gift certificates to a locally-owned restaurant? On your mark ... get set ... go!
Math Nerds Rule
Back before the math portion of my brain shifted into neutral—curse you, calculus!—I considered myself a bit of a math nerd. When I saw that Lux Middle Schools’s MathCounts team placed second in the state competition it brought back a stream of memories. Unfortunately, most of the memories involve me not having the slightest idea how to do most of the problems set before me, but hey, I tried.
Also, big congratulations to Lux’s Isaac Bohart who will join three Omahans to represent the state in the National MathCounts competition in Denver in May.
Who Wants a Chunk of My Marrow?
It’s official, I’m now a member of the National Marrow Donor Program. My card arrived on Friday.
Here’s hoping medical science makes my stay on the list very short. Not because I don’t want to donate, but because it would be fantastic if the stuff they need could be grown in a lab.
Two Classics in One Month
Among the news that P.O. Pears is closing later this month, I had forgotten that Kuhl’s was due to close, too. That’s two Lincoln classics gone in one month. Ouch.
Looking at Lincoln’s dining scene today, can you identify any newish restaurants that are likely to be considered “classics” many years from now?
A New Local Food Blog
Wisco dropped me a note to let me know that he has started up a new local restaurant review blog. The food lovers among you—read, pretty much all of you—will probably want to keep an eye on it. I have added DINK Restaurant Review to the blogroll rotation on the right for your easy access.
The Peacock Lunch Buffet
Finally made it over to The Peacock to catch their lunch buffet earlier in the week, the relatively new Indian restaurant across the street from the Southpointe Mall. I thought it was really very good and I would definitely go back there again. I thought the buffet was about the right size. If I remember correctly, that day there were at least several vegetarian offerings – dry, slightly spiced potatoes, saag; and for protein there were three meat and fish items – tandoori chicken, chicken curry, and fish curry. They also had sambar soup with rice cakes, as well as white and yellow rice and naan bread. Contrary to most Indian-style buffets I have been to before, it was nice to see a mix of different cuisines here. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a black or yellow dal as well, but I can’t complain. For a buffet outing, I would much prefer to eat at a place featuring a limited selection of well done items rather than the 100-item super buffet Chinese-style places that have creeped across American suburbia in recent years.
Although I tried a bit of everything, I concentrated on the chicken and fish curries with naan. I thought they were both excellent, with rather largish chunks of meat and fish respectively, and a nice, spicy curry base. Each had a very distinctive chicken and fish flavor. The fish curry especially was very tasty, had a strong fish taste, as well as a nice spicy kick to it. Although I could see how some people might not like it, I enjoyed it the most of everything on the buffet by far.
I also snacked on the tandoori chicken as well and liked it. You can see a piece of it hiding beneath a few pieces of naan in the photo above. I have been to other Indian-style buffets in which tandoori chicken is a main stay, and have sometimes found it to be under or over cooked, no doubt a casualty of under-experience or an overworked kitchen. At The Peacock it was about perfect. The cooks seemed to keep the buffet well stocked and hot as well.
Lincoln chowhound Swoof (who looks like a heftier and meaner version of Elliott Spitzer) seemed really taken by both the mild and aromatic saag, yet also enjoyed the spicy and strong fish curry as well – together they make for a nice yin/yang like balance. You can tell this man has an experienced palate and knows what kind of flavors to aim for when dining at an Indian restaurant. Mr. Wilson also noted how much he enjoyed the saag as well, and made a few return trips for it. The ubiquitous BeerorKid dude – albeit no slacker when it comes to preparing and enjoying good food of all sorts – admitted that this was his first time partaking of Indian food. He employed a shotgun-like strategy and took as many different tidbits of items as possible (including an item labeled “quesadillas”). He was impressed with the overall spiciness of the offerings, and I noticed that he finished his first plate of food well before the rest of us. He enjoyed the chicken curry the most.
Please make note of the difference in lunch buffet prices from Monday to Thursday ($7.99) versus Friday and Saturday ($10.99) at The Peacock. I assume that from Monday to Thursday there are fewer items, and Swoof mentioned that they usually do not have Tandoori Chicken in the buffet, so that may have explained the weekend hike in prices. Again, I very much enjoyed my lunch outing there and hope to make return visits soon, although at $10.99, I’m not sure how often I’d come back on a Friday or Saturday. It will be interesting to see how often the kitchen will rotate items on its buffet, and with what dishes.
The Goods and Bads of Union Plaza II
I was going to post a reply to Fletch’s comment in another thread, but this is a slightly different train of thought than the other blog post, so I’ll start fresh. To refresh your memory, last night I questioned the name of Lincoln’s newest park, Union Plaza. It’s a curious name selection, considering there happens to already be a fairly well-known Union Plaza on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, just to the north. That Union Plaza has been around for decades. (Granted, I think its official name is Nebraska Union Plaza, but everybody calls it Union Plaza.)
So why cause confusion by creating a new—and completely unrelated—Union Plaza just a few blocks to the south? The “Union” half of the answer comes from the donor of $1.5 million toward the construction of the new park. Union Bank is a local bank that does a good job being involved in various ways throughout the community. In fact, their local involvement is one of the reasons I am a customer. They should be commended for their donation, as Fletch noted.
But none of that is a reason for the duplicate name. It could have been Union Park, Union Mall, Union Place, Union Square, Union Station, Union Center, and so on. In the long run, the duplicate names will likely be little more than an annoyance. Still, it’s an annoyance that should have been avoided.
I Need to Get Me Some of Them
As a fan of spicy food, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of empathy for the folks on 20th Street who were chased from their homes by chile fumes. I have tortured the eyes and lungs of the residents of 625 Elm Street more than once. I don’t think I’ve ever poisoned the air enough to send an entire apartment building running for the hills, though.
My Brother Darryl, and My Other Brother Darryl
Lincoln’s newest park will be called Union Plaza.
That’s funny. I could have sworn Lincoln already has one of those.
Speaking in Sentences
You know, it’s one thing to have Robbie learning word after word after word. But speaking in sentences? He isn’t that old already, is he? I had heard Robbie utter a few “near sentences” before. Things like “want up” ("pick me up") and “get off” ("take object A off of object B"). But those weren’t really sentences.
The other morning The Missus went into his room to wake him up. Apparently he had already been awake. When I walked in, The Missus was lifting Robbie from his bed.
“Well aren’t you wide-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning!”, I said.
“Bushy-tailed?” The Missus exclaimed in an questioning tone. She asked Robbie, “Do you have a tail?”
Robbie pursed his lips. “No”, he replied. Then, after thinking for a moment, he added, “Daisy had a tail”.
And there it was. Robbie’s first obvious, unmistakable, real-live sentence. It was a surreal moment as I was struck by the realization that Robbie is on the verge of not just speaking words but manipulating language. In retrospect, he has been manipulating language for many weeks, but in more subtle ways. For example, he has been forming more compound words all on his own, such as “big truck trash” (garbage truck).
I suppose it’s largely a first-time parent thing, but these little “lightbulb moments” of Robbie’s are really a hoot to watch. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
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