Mr. Forgetful Grouchy Cranky Irritable pants

It's Sunday, which not only wraps up another weekend (where does the time go?!) but is also the day that Anthony and I do our weekly dinner and grocery shopping excursion.

Today we made a stop at Target because Anthony needed new pants for work. I also purchased a $6 pair of sweat pants (it's winter you know), a motion activated candy dispenser for my office, a little Christmas tree decoration for our house, and a couple of other trinkets.

Dinner was at Culver's at Broadway and Prudence, followed by grocery shopping at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at Broadway and Camino Seco.

I also slept a bunch today, gave Lucky a bath, and watched some Golden Girls episodes during the TV Land Golden Girls marathon. In case you're wondering, Blanche is still a slut.

Anthony headed right for the clearance rack
at the Grant and Tanque Verde Target store.

Here's what $124 worth of merchandise
looks like at the Target check out

Dinner at Culver's, Broadway and Prudence.
This was my order number which is also my age.



Anthony's chicken tenders and cheese curds
and my cheeseburger and fries

That's Anthony's fork diving into the pickle
that was part of my food.
He always eats my pickles because I don't like pickles.

Anthony nibbles on a chicken tender while
a bunch of snowmen on a Christmas wrapped
wall hanging look over his shoulder

Snowflake pretzels at Walmart Market.
"Cool, sweet and creamy" which
sounds like a date I've had

Cheez-It crackers can be educational
thanks to letters from Scrabble Jr.
They can also transport you to back to a
long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

Boogie Wipes are the perfect choice
when you have boogie fever

Anthony spotted a bin of emoji pillows

The bin had a bunch of the smiley ones

And, I spotted this one which is my favorite
round yellow emoji.
I bought it... just five bucks.

Anthony holds a Fun Dip fun book
and a huge slice and share Snickers.
He likes to call this "breakfast"

When we reached the check out, I spotted more Snickers
that have funny sayings on them and all of the sayings
apply to Anthony... like this one.

And this one

Oddly enough, he was starting to get cranky from me
holding up the candy bars to shoot photos

The look on his face totally goes with this one.
Thanks for playing along
Mr. Forgetful Grouchy Cranky Irritable pants!

Downtown Holiday Window Decorating Contest

I was recruited to be one of the judges of the Downtown Partnership's Holiday Window Decorating Contest. I used to do this sort of thing quite often when I was a radio dj. Now that I'm a 'behind the scenes' guy working in TV, the on-camera talent normally is dispatched to community related events like this. I'm only called into service when no one is available.

It was a very wintery day in Tucson today. I wore thermals under my jeans, a thick sweater under my coat, a scarf, gloves, and a wooly hat. Fortunately, the rain that had been going on and off all day had finally stopped by the time judging started around 5:30 p.m. There was a lot of walking around outside required and I had to deal with the elements. Tucson's weather is so nice most of the time it's pretty rare that dressing for winter-like conditions is necessary.

The top three in the window contest were ForsShop, Crescent Tobacco Shop, and Park Tucson. It was a tough decision since many window displays were well thought out and obviously had a tremendous amount of effort put into them. The winners received prizes including round trip airline tickets to any destination in the U.S., $1,000 worth of advertising on KGUN 9, and $100 gift card.

Here's some of the photos I shot during the walk around downtown and includes a few of the holiday displays.

Holographic Santa at MEB Management

Music themed display at Chicago Music Store

A smokin' holiday display
at Crescent Tobacco Shop

Brandi from the Downtown Partnership
and her daughter Emily,
and Joe who was the other judge.
This is inside Johnny Gibson's Market.

Winning display at ForsShop

A few fashionable outfits around the
Christmas tree at Hydra.

A woman was selling these cool looking hanging
lamps under a tent on the street

It's a Sparklegasm in the Krikawa window

Painted window display at Park Tucson.
The parking meters even had lights

Holiday display on the roof of Veg In A Box

Christmas village in the window
of the Fox Theatre

The Tucson Streetcar was even in the holiday spirit
with strings of garland and lights in the train windows.

Some sort of march or protest went by us headed west
on Congress Street.
I don't have a clue what they were marching for / protesting.

Tucson Police followed the protest march
down Congress Street

Heading back to the car walking north on Stone Avenue
after the judging.
This selfie is proof that I have a fat head
that could scare small children.

McDonald's Food Box Christmas Tree

Today was a low key Sunday. I slept in, finished my laundry, gave Lucky a bath, fixed a rubber thing that was hanging down underneath the poomobile (my brown Nissan Altima car), and Anthony and I had dinner at McDonald's and did our weekly grocery shopping.

Tomorrow will be day six of at least one of my co-workers taking a vacation day. The rest of the week we should be at full staff. They've pretty much used their vacation days for the year so I should see all of their smiling faces through most of the rest of December. Yaaay.

McDonald's has the best Christmas tree I've seen all
holiday season at Broadway and Camino Seco.
Food boxes used as ornaments.
It's going to be a delicious Christmas.

Tonight's McDonald's dinner:
Chicken nuggets for Anthony, a Big Mac for Ken
and a plentiful amount of fries.

Holiday coffees at Walmart Neighborhood Market.
Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Spice and White
Chocolate Peppermint.
The graphics on the packages with those character
faces are a tad bit creepy.

More Dunkin' Donuts coffees...
Cinnamon Coffee Roll and Blueberry Muffin.
They must have used huge cups of coffee
in the photo shoot to get a cinnamon roll
and a muffin to fit in there.

Stephen Curry on the current Wheaties box.
Bruce Jenner was the featured athlete on Wheaties
back in the 1970's and we all know what
happened to him.
I hope Stephen enjoys being a man.

Star Wars stuff is everywhere
even on fruit flavored snacks.

Yoda uses the force to make marshmallows
float above his cereal.

Darth Vader eats fruity flavored cereal.
Representing the dark side of the force
requires a delicious breakfast to start to his day.

Sandwich Bros Chicken Melts
I bought these because the box says they're
"Really... Really Tasty" and they're
a perfect size for light meals.
I'm delicate you know.

Hostess Merry Minty Holiday Cakes
Make your bad breath go away with these
LiMINTed edition snacks.

Selfie Stick at Walmart Market for only $4.88.
"Plug and Shoot" sounds like a date I've had.

This reminds me of the movie "American Pie"

Chap Stick flavored lip balms:
Aloha Coconut, Pumpkin Pie, Candy Cane.
"Put Your Lips First" sounds like a date I've had.

Anthony appreciates the photo I shot of this candy bar
which describes his personality perfectly.

Dinner at Cheddars minus Payton

Anthony and I had dinner tonight at Cheddar's next to El Con Mall.

We were supposed to have dinner with Payton, who is moving from Tucson to Phoenix. He wouldn't respond to our late afternoon Facebook and text messages and he missed out. Payton is the young man who stayed with us for a few months in the spring of 2014. I'm not clear as to why he's moving to Phoenix except he has family up there he wants to live with or close to. That's what Anthony tells me.

Anth and I enjoyed a nice dinner. They make good food at Cheddar's. It's the second time we've eaten there and it was pretty busy probably because it's a Saturday night.

I found it amusing that Anthony did the same thing today that he does every time we go out to eat. He eats about half of what he orders then suddenly is so full he exclaims "I'm bloated" or something like that and he is at capacity. If we eat at a sit down style restaurant, he always brings food home in a leftovers box to eat later because he can't finish what he orders. It's a good thing we rarely travel because his suitcase would be full of half eaten leftovers to take on an airplane. I don't think security is ready to deal with cold food in a Styrofoam box smelling up a plane.

Anthony had chicken tenders, I had a bacon cheeseburger, and we had chips and queso as an appetizer. He also had a cocktail. Overall, it was a nice dinner and conversation.

Sorry you missed out on dinner, Payton. I was buying.

Anthony busted out his wooly green hat for tonight's
dinner at Cheddar's. It's an authentic sign of winter.



Anthony's cocktail drink.
He skillfully fished out a cherry using
nothing but a straw and his wits.

Chips, queso, and salsa appetizer

Anthony's chicken tenders platter.
They make their own ranch sauce there
which is mildly spicy.

My bacon cheeseburger and fries.
They must have a lot of people like me who eat there.
They separated the vegetables from the burger
so I didn't have to take them off of the burger
before I ate it.

There's a big fish tank in the middle of the restaurant.
This random guy was holding a small child up
to see the fishies swimming around.
It was super cute.

Shoot at AT&T

I left the TV station for a couple of hours today for an off-site video shoot at the new AT&T store at Broadway and Wilmot.

It was kind of surreal being there because the last time I stood in that spot it was a Famous Footwear and I was buying shoes (that I still own). The Famous Footwear moved across the street a few years ago and the AT&T space was occupied by a mattress store for a while, and now a shiny new AT&T.

My co-workers Tina and Alex were there, as well as Steve working the camera.

I do have to say it's quite a store. AT&T purchased DirecTV recently so it's not just phones that they sell. You can sign up for DirecTV, they have GoPro video cameras, dozens of smartphone choices with every accessory you can imagine, and they even have drones that are operated by a smartphone app.

AT&T at Broadway and Wilmot

Steve shoots video of a tablet that controls
what you can watch on DirecTV

Tina points and Steve looks

Alex and Tina discuss what Tina
can grab with her right hand

Getting ready for the on camera interview

Tina learns about the new features of the
AT&T store including shiny hanging balls

That's a small drone flying around up by
the lights on the ceiling.
It's controlled by an app on a smartphone.
There really is an app for everything.