First off, the NFL season has started for most teams today; what I saw of the Chicago Bears game, it was the same old same old for them: a bad offense saved by a quality defensive performance. The game vs. the San Francisco 49ers was also played in pounding rain so I'm sure it wasn't aesthetically pleasing in any way; still, the Bears won 19-10.
I've already had Mountain Dew's newest edition of their Halloween season Voodoo flavor but I'll talk about that next time (which should hopefully be in a few weeks). For now I'll mention Coca Cola's Dreamworld, which is also recent. I heard someone describe that flavor as “Yellow Tic Tacs”, which I'll go with. How that is “the taste of dreams” is unknown by me.
Not too much to discuss now; at least there's two new restaurants to mention, which will be done so at the end. I went and saw Jaws on the big screen. I actually saw it that way once before-like a decade and a half ago-but this time it was via IMAX, so it was in a huge way. The movie's pretty awesome so it was a great experience. To mention an anecdote, long ago mom told me about how when she saw Jaws back when it came out in 1975, it was so popular that at the screening, there were people sitting in the aisle-way; imagine that happening now...
As I am sure people don't want to hear about me going to the new Publix that opened in town-it's small by Publix standards yet at least it had everything I needed-or how I bought a new pair of tan-colored shorts, or how I got a haircut that of course was much-needed, I'll talk about the biggest day I had: traveling to St. Petersburg to view the Tampa Bay Rays play against the Los Angeles Angels. I purchased the tickets in a flash sale a few weeks before the game so it was just a coincidence that it was the day after the owner of the Angels announced he wanted to sell the team. As LA has two of the best players in the game (Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani) there is no excuse for them to have an under .500 record yet that's what they've been for a few years... they do need a new owner, in other words. Watching those players was a big reason why I chose that opponent when I had the option of a few different ones.
Tropicana Field is largely the same as it was last year; the game itself was 0-0 until the 8th inning then suddenly it was a lot of fun up to the 11th inning, where the Rays won 4-3. Ohtani didn't do anything of note but Trout did hit a home run. I'm glad this was the one game chosen for a live appearance this year. Later in the fall I'll watch a college football game or two live; it's been a lot of fun this season watching the games on TV. The first restaurant to be talked about was in Clearwater before the Rays game. Queen City staple Skyline Chili actually has a few locations in Florida although this was this closest one to me. Cincinnati Chili isn't really chili per se... it's rather a Meditteranean-themed dish where spaghetti noodles are covered by a meat sauce then a huge glob of shredded cheddar cheese-along with beans and/or onions if you wish but of course I didn't have it that way. It was a delicacy I hadn't tasted before; while I do prefer spaghetti w/ marinara sauce, Cincinnati Chili was fine.
I'll close this out by mentioning that the other new restaurant I went to was one that just opened in Orlando. At ICON Park was the Carolina chain Brother Jimmy's BBQ. Their food was also fine, and it had a nice atmosphere. When I hopefully return by the end of the month... nothing's on the agenda yet but I'll stumble into something interesting.
