The Royce Files

Phile and I were celebrating the feast of St. Patrick the other day and the topic of what goes with beer arose. Eating ice cream, I suggested ice cream would be a fine compliment to a glass of pilsner. The thought crossed my mind that beer flavored ice cream would bring men and women together as no other food has done before. Phil then proffered an earnest proverb: Beer is good with ice cream but beer with beer is better . An astute observation methinks.

I get to celbrate St. Patrick's feast twice. Yep, I celebrated last night and this evening I will be going to Gethsemane Cathedral's St. Patrick's Day feast. Hopefully Phil will have more quotable moments. Last nights festivities included in addition to food and stout, trivia, music, and a movie. I was the music. I still am not very good at playing those Irish ditties. I need to practice more. Our Irish film for the evening was Angela's Ashes . It was based on the Frank McCourt book of the same title. I never read the book but had read a synopsis summary of it once. Actually I almost bought it at the second hand store once. Anyways the book being a memoir of sorts, the movie is rather episodic. One event after another that shapes Frank. Quite an eery look at poverty in Ireland in the days leading up to WWII. You just hope the family can escape it. Eventually he gets the money (somewhat dubiously) and returns to the United States. And by the way there is nudity and sex....

I have friend in town. He a fairly laid back guy and the kind of guy able to sneak through airport security with toenail clippers kind of sly. If he had not gotten married I'd suspect he form a vigilante anti-terrorist brigade that's only purpose was to sit around and drink beer (not the domestic junk) and discuss means they could use to track down Osama's minions. He bought a whole gross of nutrition bars recently (and gross can describe them: think soft cardboard with flour, wheat germ and chocolate) that I had interest in obtaining a few from him. He brings some over to my place and to my chagrin the were of the female specific type. I was bit dismayed and did not want people to think I am becoming woman. Phil responded with one of his trademark bits of wisdom: "Nutrition knows no gender." I have not eaten any of the bars yet so we will see if this is true.

So you can actully lose your job because you blog. In the case of 2 individuals, their blogs cost them their jobs. Read about it here . This begs the question what is protected speech now. Obviously their blogs must of violated company policy in the sense that as individuals they represent the company to the public. Additionally, speech is not necessarily protected in the sphere of the private world (only in relation to incidences of discrimination, whistleblowing, or in union organizing. Ones are employed at will as I recall from my professional ethics class and thus the private corpus (body) can do what it wants. I am not sure many even realize employers have this "right." Now then what can one blog without violating the company line? Here are my suggestions: Movies. As long you don't work for Miramax or Paramount I am sure the discussion of movie culture can be discussed and dissented with freely. (i.e. I dispised Al Pacino's role in Meet the Fokkers.) Look n...

Been doing a bit of research for (re) developing some web endeavors that have fallen aside in the last year and came across this UK site. It feature an interview with Gavin Peacock , former Chelsea and Newcastle star. He speaks about his success and matters of faith. The website itself is rather well done and accessible yet utilizes Macromedia (but for good effect). Be sure to check out the steps of faith page.

My former roommates and oft time colaboraters came back to town. We decided to lunch at an Indian restaurant in the south of go called Saffron since one of them in particular had a craving for the delictable dishes of the Sub-Continent. This place had opened a while back before we parted ways from our old HQ. It is one of two Indian restaurants in town. However, Saffron has a classy traditional look and seems to be more frequented by both non-Indians and Indians. I think I saw more Indians in that restaurant than I had at the other place 10 times 7. The food of course was delicious and the service excellent. We had the buffet which included a few curries, tandoori chicken, and other things my mouth enjoys with rice and the nan. It's not to everyone's liking but hey a good portion of the world eat this kind of menu. More on Indian food here .

After almost a month of researching and ardent bidding on MP3 players at America's garage sale ( ebay ), I finally eluded the snippers and got a Rio Chiba . A flash player, the Chiba, is upgradable with SD memory. It also is small and ergonomic. Additionally it is pretty tough. It took a few drops but worked flawlessly. I enjoy it. Well, I show this item to my friend and he is hooked on it. So hooked he seeks one out on Ebay. And then he wins one the next day! It took me nearly a month and he snags one in about 24 hours. I guess I am setting a trend. A few days later he won another. He had done some mass bidding in order to secure a Chiba for himself. He might win more for all I know. Price comparison: Chiba in store new is $119. I got mine on Ebay (used) for about $58.