Sweet Life Festival

My day started with a little bit of Shaun T's Insanity before waking up and hanging out with Sam and his son for a bit and breakfast of some scrambled eggs and toast.  He also agave me some of the most horrible coffee I've had in a long time.  I can't remember when the last time I've ever even seen anybody buy Chock Full O Nuts.  With good reason.  I think my great grandma used to drink Chock Full O Nuts.  It tasted like sludge.  We then headed over to Rio to do some of the greatest window shopping ever.  I have been budgeting myself for the most part to prepare myself for my upcoming trip to Europe.  I only made one purchase, a 750 mL bottle of Duvel.  I love that beer and was determined to get him to try it.  I would then introduce Sam to some good coffee.  Starbucks.  Not many people know this but you can order a short at Starbucks.  It's great when you want just a little bit of coffee.

The Best Method for making coffee at home starts off with good quality fair trade beans.  I would rather not drink coffee at all than to drink coffee that exploits the farmers that grow it.  I just believe that when love is put into a product it tastes that much better.  The other thing you need is a coffee grinder.  I keep two at home, one for spices and one for coffee.

We ate lunch at BGR.  I was very interested trying the lobster burger, but was drawn towards the Wellington.   It was a symphony of earthiness brightened up with the sharpness of the Dijon mustard in the sauce.  It was a messy burger, but all really good burgers are really messy in my personal opinion.  Somehow I managed to eat the entire thing like a grown up without getting any of the burger on my white shirt.  I passed on getting the roasted garlic on my fires which would have likely been my topping of choice but I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to eat a ton of garlic when I would soon be in close quarters with so many people.

I ended up going with the Parmesan to top the fries and thought the fries were pretty good as well.  I loved the mosaic tiled tables and the kid in me arose to sit at the table that had the superman logo on it.  Who passes up on Superman? (With the exception of that one Superman movie where Superman lifts an entire island of kryptonite into space.  Not only does that defy all logic of the movie, I mean a little piece of kryptonite brings Superman to his knees, now he can suddenly lift whole islands of it... Give me a break.  Not to mention the fact that the acting in that movie was abysmal.  I would rather watch slug documentaries rather than see that movie again... but I digress).  I also liked that they served beer and ended up getting a Hefewiezen.

Then as we got ready to leave disaster struck.  Car battery deadz.  After much pacing around, I had the brilliant idea of going to Target and getting jumper cables.  (I mean I am the smarter one between me and Sam).  We eventually got somebody to help us out and give us a jump because everyone we talked to before we got the cables was "Driving their wife's car which does not have jumper cables."  Why would you not have jumper cables in your wife's car?  I don't have jumper cables but I live on the wild side.  

I quickly checked into the Doubletree.  I wanted to drop off my bags and get into my room before I went out to the festival.  I mainly wanted the hotel room in case I got too drunk out there, I'd be able to take a cab back to the hotel, without bothering Sam or his very pregnant wife.  The hotel was pretty nice.  I loved the fact that it had open elevators, which may be a point of contention for those acrophobic types.  Though it is only four stories.    I checked in got the warm chocolate chip cookie and ran upstairs to the room and almost left forgetting the ticket.  A quick double-take and I was off to the festival.

I got there just in time to see Gary Clark Jr. start to preform.  I missed him a Lollapolooza last year.  I've been a pretty big fan ever since I got a chance to listen to his album Blak and Blu.  His voice is soulful and he combines skillful guitar play reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix with an amazing singing voice onto melodies that range from bluesy to upbeat.

One of the pluses at the festival was that the food and beer was pretty good too.  I had a great crabcake sandwich, but the star of the show would have to be the lobster roll which was packed with awesome fresh lobster.  The best thing I had there was the kale and chicken sandwich.  I had to go for it after hearing the guy in front of me diss it by saying that the pork and slaw sandwich had to better.  The chicken was slightly spicy and went very well with the rich lemony aoli resting against the hearty kale.

The star of the show that day for me was Robert Delong.  I love his music.  It was a few months ago when I was driving to Atlanta when I heard the song Global Concepts on the radio and had to buy it.  Then in a search for his music video, I happened across this video:

I mean in my personal opinion, the song Global Concepts is amazing in and of itself, but to watch and see him create that amazing sound all by himself.  It is amazing to me.  The music is awesome and has a bit of that electro vibe to it.  Amazingly enough the lyrics are good and pretty complex as well.

I left a little bit early since I'm not a huge fan of Pheonix or Passion Pit and I was pretty wet and cold.  I like their music just fine, after the rain, it wasn't fun at all since it was like 60 outside.  In hindsight I could have went for the regular tickets vice the VIP since I didn't get any of the benefit of the VIP.  The bar for the VIP section had a longer line than the other bars.  The VIP bathrooms also had a huge wait.  Oh well now I know.

The next morning I enjoyed breakfast at the hotel, and it was pretty good.  I'd say a little above average as far as hotel breakfast buffets go.  One added bonus was that thay had crepes.  They were filled with a sweetened up cream cheese.  It was a good start to the morning.  I enjoyed the crepes alongside crisp bacon  scrambled eggs and potatoes.  Topped everything off with some Orange Juice.