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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Halloween Copyright Yummy Lunch!

"ALL RISE! Hear Ye, Hear Ye, court is now in session. The Honorable (and munificent) Mark Monz presiding."

Monz: "Call the first case!"

"Dracula vs. Pickett"

"Ernie for the Plaintiff your honor. The Defendant, Bobby "Boris" Pickett has admitted that his smash Halloween hit, The Monster Mash was blatantly stolen from my client's song, "The Transrlvania Twist." This caused great mental anguish to my client. Witnesses testify that my client was awoken from a long convalescence and so distraught over this theft that he rose up and shook his fists uncontrollably. Moreover, Damages are sizable. The song caught on in a flash and became a graveyard smash and "the hit of the land." It is played by young and old to this day.

"Anastasio Toosolooso for the defense, your honor. First, this dispute was settled when my client made plaintiff part of his band, the Crypt Kicker Five. Plaintiff made no complaint when my client pronounced to witnesses that "everthing's cool" with respect to the quarrel. Clearly this creates an estoppel.

"Your honor, copyright assignments must be in writing. Besides, any estoppel is tolled by my client's, er, medical condition."

Monz: "Ok, I've heard enough and I am prepared to rule. The clear precedence here is Kaukonen vs. Kantner. Accordingly, this is a "silly suit." Let's all go home (not the office, home!) and have a yummy lunch of Mexican chicken casserole with a little thing of hummus and crackers, and some grapes! Everyone except for Ernie.
0 comments

Monday, October 30, 2006

Monz' Compass Points Towards the North Poll!

Monz listens to his peeps, oh boy and how!

Today I am having a sandwich made of Monz-barbequed chicken breast, coated in TWO kinds of Paprika -- hot and "regular," on whole grain bread (with a slice of Swiss cheese and some olive-sun-dried-tomato 'relish') With an apple and some jell-o. And bottled spring water. Sorry, no grapes.


Needless to say, we need our next poll!

What Should Monz' Next Road Trip Be?
Western Suburbs for a tour of the Ferrara Candy Company!
Grand Rapids/Michigan Shoreline/Some I94-exit road trip - a repeat, this time bringing Mrs. Monz along!
Kwik Kah-nah-dah: Windsor Ontario for the Beer Store, Maple Food, and other international travel delights (plus above-mentioned I94 stop)!
Downtown Deerfield: some healthy munchies from Whole Foods, perfect for a day in the basement!
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

1 comments

Friday, October 27, 2006

Sing, Sing a Song!

With a song in his heart, Monz lunches on American fare: turkeywich with baked lays from "the place." Which made us wonder, what is Monz' theme song? So we gave him the "What's Your Theme Song Quiz" and here's what it turned up:


Your Theme Song is Beautiful Day by U2

"Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away"

You see the beauty in life, especially in ordinary everyday moments.
And if you're feeling down, even that seems a little beautiful too.
What's Your Theme Song?
1 comments

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Secrets of Sabor!

The Food Editor (FE) took that cooking class we talked about the other night and, well, the FE knows how to eat but we never said he knew how to cook! In other words, it wasn't quite as basic (i.e., "Cooking for Dummies") as the class description implied. Indeed, some in attendance were Lincoln Park Trixi...young women recently engaged, with sophisticated questions about what cuttlery to include on the registers. The food was yummy and, in the spirit of MonzMu, we offer a couple of instructor-described secrets we learned. For the squash ravioli we didn't use pasta but thin wanton wrappers, wet with a little water along the edges (egg whites are better if you're frying, but we were boiling). Plop a dollop onto the center (people tend to put too much and it oozes out) and fold them into cute shapes or just put another wrapper on top and press down the edges. And here's some industry lingo: butter is "love" and salt is "kisses" -- so a dish with a lot of both is made "with a lot of love and kisses."

It's no secret what Monz had for lunch: a road trip to Louie's for the Thursday lasagna special. Delicious! Salad with beets (Da!) and water.
2 comments

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Beat Strong, Heart of Monz!

The poll results are in and the peeps have peeped: you want Monz to Eat Healthy! Thus, we instruct the Monz to dine on the grilled paprika chicken sandwich and fixins that his readers so yearn.

To learn the significance of these results, we consulted noted anthropological psychologist Dr. Hugh Jeprostate.

"Well, we see a certain duality of purpose in these results. The voters clearly value Monz and want him to live a long and healthy life. Yet, one more cynical might detect a certain selfishness here. Is it for Monz' sake they wish to keep him healthy or their own? Ahhh? Hmmmm? Less cynically, while the results lean towards the utilitarian, we see a very wholistic approach to lunch on the whole, as each of the aspects of Monz' time and lunch are given credit and credence."

Today Monz gave credit and creedance to a turkey/corned beef & swiss sandwich (on whole grain bread with horseradish mustard), apple and grapes.

More polls to come!
1 comments

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Lunch Ticket!

While we await the results of the only vote that matters -- Monz' lunch -- Monz has a turkey and corned beef on whole grain bread, two string cheesers, and an apple. "Eh" you say? Well, we forgot to mention the incredibly yummy olive salad on the sandwich, said salad purchased on the road home from the great (Illinois) Northwest.
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Monday, October 23, 2006

Power to the Peeps!

Monz let the sponsoring bar group committee pick his Friday dinner. The bar group's dinner picked the Monz apart. Thus, Monz is giving his loyal readers a rare opportunity to pick a future Monz lunch! Honor system, y'all. Voting closes in two days. We must say, it'll be hard to beat today's lunch: roast beef and cheddar sandwich from Domineekaneekaneek's, with ceasar salad.



What Should Monz Have For Lunch?
Healthy: Grilled chicken breast sandwich on multigrain bread (possibly seasoned with paprika), grapes, bottled spring water.
Convenient: A wrap at the CSC, caf free Diet Coke, Baked Lays
Succulent: Head to downtown Chicago for a steak at Petterino's (medium well, with a baked potato)
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

4 comments

Friday, October 20, 2006

It's Your Thing!

Before heading out with Mrs. Monz for a fun-ducational weekend in the Galena Territory, Monz signs up for Library Thing, so he can help his loyal readers find good books. Just search on user "Monz", find user Monz and check out Monz' "catalog," which currently contains 3 books, but Monz will be working on it. First Monz will be working on a roasted turkey sandwich on toasted whole wheat bread with hot peppers, courtesy of Potbellies (and Mrs. Monz, who is having the same), as they begin the drive west!
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Thursday, October 19, 2006

Monz Gives Us Gas!

Monz considers it his patriotic duty to tell you that Consumer Reports says that of all those cliche gas saving tips, the only ones that really leap out is driving no faster than 55 mph (at least if you don't need to drive 55 -- let's just say Monz has a bit of the red rocker in him!) and keeping the wind drag down. More interesting was their advice to keep the air conditioner on -- it only costs 1 mile per galon. And Monz considers it his patriotic duty to head to the CSC and address the politicians' hot air by voting early! While there, he dined on chicken roletto, detoxed diet coke, apple and jello (from home).

Now the terrorists have lost!
0 comments

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Does the Lunch Rule the Mind or the Mind Rule the Lunch? I Dunno!

A mope-rock Monz favorite might be moved to song by today's lunch dillema. Say you have a should-be yummy lunch. Say it's accompanied by news from a certain online dating service that, for the first time in many a moon, you have mail. Say you then discover it's from someone thirteen years older than you (and you're not all that young yourself). We realize reactions will be different to this dillema, we might even get some angry mail, but the spirit of Monzmu demands full disclosure.

Monz has no such dillema, as lunch isn't all that yummy. Turkey sandwich on wholegrain with muenster, string cheese, apple, jell-o. "Ok."
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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

People Who Need People!

Monz heads off to a committee meeting/working lunch (hey, Lake County lawyers are in need of Monz' munificience too!). While general bar meetings are quite the affair, committee meetings meet at places like the local courthouse, where Monz drops by the CSC for a honey mustard & ham sandwich, detoxed diet coke, an apple and some grapes from home. Meanwhile, the editors need some people with jokes, as they will soon be heading to the Latin School's legendary Joke Exchange and don't want to be embarassed again by the old retirees and their truly filthy jokes. Yet all we have at the moment (the JE requires a minimum of one joke) is this groaner:

Why does the checkout person ask you "paper or plastic?"
Because baggers can't be choosers.
6 comments

Monday, October 16, 2006

Lunch Therapy!


The editors would like to introduce you to our almost arbitrarily chosen favorite pop psychologist, Dr. Murry Banks. You tykes may not know it, but MB was once the hot ticket on the pop psychologist lecture circuit, way back in the day. The back cover tells us so! We'll be featuring some of the good doctors insights from time to time in the spirit of...you know. Of course, you could spend a lot of money to privately engage someone like MB (or MB himself -- he's still alive and still motivating!) Or you could have a couple of unspecified beast tamales from Whole Foods, apple, banana, grapes and Jell-o things -- we bet your mood would improve too!
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Friday, October 13, 2006

Shameless Hussey!

Yeah, I gave up on following up last week's road trip to Ming Toy for a trip back to Hussey's. Hussey's is a tavern, and a popular lunch joint here. In my head, I associated "Tavern" and "Popular Lunch Joint" with the hamburger -- the bedrock staple against which all tavern lunch joints must be evaluated. It dawned on me that I've never had their hamburger. So I went there, with a table full of doc's to review in tow, and ordered the burger with swiss cheese. It came quickly, and as I sat there surrounded by smoking state's attorney's andsmoking criminal defense dudes, I noticed the burger was rectangular, shaped to fit the roll it was on. First impressions, pretty good, not cooked well enough, but tasty. Second impressions? This is the saltiest burger I've ever had!! Man! WATER!! WATER!!! Ok, I tried it, so far I'm still alive. Maybe next week I'll run back to Ming Toy for some more traditional chinese chow.
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Thursday, October 12, 2006

Don't Let The Dragon Eat Your Mother!

Sorry . . . that's just the name of the terrible prog/fusion/pieceofcrap John Mclaughlin tune that's playing right now -- it's from MOJO's tribute to Jimi Hendrix CD, which is only ok as whole. Today for lunch I brought a blackened chicken veggie roll up from Whole Foods, with an apple, banana, string cheese and Jell-o. I've only started it so I can't tell you if the whole is yummy, or if I had room for the jell-o and string cheese -- it's not looking good.

As for the editors, I've been exhorting them to take a group outing to this restaurant, for the rock n' roll history as well as the organic growing practices. Hopefully they will take me up on this challenge and report back.
3 comments

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Big Bad Blogger, Baby!

All Right! I get the blog to myself for a few days. I hope the editorial staff enjoy their retreat and I hope they are able to recharge their batteries and find some zest for life up north! Today I had two small sandwiches: apple mustard turkey and ham, on oatmeal bread, which was extremely yummy. Add an apple, banana and some delicious chocolate pudding that Mrs. Monz snuck in the bag when I wasn't looking. I brought string cheese and jell-o, but am too full to even think about eating those. I've got a court date next week that I am trying to prepare for, but I find the mounds of financial info somewhat taxing. A full belly is not helping.

I just checked: the chocolate pudding is called "Kozy Shack" -- if any of you know of any good chocolate puddings out there, lemme know!
3 comments

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

You Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round!

For Monz life is, if not simple, direct and pleasurable. Do you only have mini-size bread in the house? Make 2 mini-size sandwiches. And make them delicious! Tavern ham, horesey mustard, tommy turkey, complex mustard. 2 different string cheeses (sargento (tm) and cheddar), an apple, and a banana.

For the editors, life is not simple and direct. One thing the editors enjoy doing in the spirit of munificience is converting friends' vinyl albums to digital format. After all, you never know when one might have a compelling need to listen to some undigitized Grand Funk just sitting in your record collection! Unfortunately they had run into bad luck of late with turntables. First they needed a new needle. Ha! So they bought a used turntable off craigslist, the $10 exchange made in an empty Wal-Mart parking lot that probably looked like a drug deal to the untrained eye. This worked fine for about six months, then it broke. Ok, back to Radio Shack for a turntable. But for some reason the editors could not get the belt that turns the turntable to install correctly, leading the a series of madening returns. After a shockingly rude response to a Craigslist ad which solicited a "best offer," the editors turned to Ebay(tm) for two turntables which indeed turned, but emitted an unpleasant electrical "buzzing" sound. Desperate, the editors turned to a USB turntable which wasn't overly difficult to install, but whose software was (and is) madeningly difficult to operate. After much trial and error the editors succeeded, though they also succeeded in figuring out the old analog system and may just total record albums the old fashion way.

The editors will be gone the rest of the week (in St. Paul, absorbing an IP seminar and disolving into a quivering emotional mass -- the two not entirely related), leaving the capable and now-familiar blog face of the Monz in charge.
0 comments

Monday, October 09, 2006

Monz Helps, Monz Heals!

Monz doesn't want his loyal readers to feel stress, pings, shakes, anxiety, you name it. So he wants his readers to get on the Do Not Call List, either sign up for electronic bill pay or automatic payment of your utilities, mortgages and other bills (Monz realizes that it's a daunting task to give up a modicum of control like that, but Monz realizes time and reducing stress are so precious as to make it wortwhile), write the Mail Preference Service of the Direct Marketing Association at PO Box 9008 Farmingdale NY 11735-9008, call Trans Union at 1-888-567-8688 to opt-out of pre-approved credit card offers (they'll tell Experian and Equifax for you) either for 2 years or forever, take a trip to a large body of water (it can be a river) and gaze out at it, don't religiously watch or listen to the news, and have a consistently yummy lunch at least one day this week, like a footlong turkey on hearty Italian with 2 kinds of peppers with baked Lays. Whatever you do, don't go through a local drive-thru that will screw up your dry Italian Beef Zip Pack order by failing to include the sweet peppers and then be utterly unappologetic about either the mistake or the likely undocumented status of the order taker right before you are about to hit a congested highway for a looooong drive back into the city or it will increase your stress. At least we think he does.
4 comments

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting!
Hey! Monz here. I just feel like blogging my Saturday lunch so here goes: I barbequed a Bubba Burger and threw swiss cheese on it and spicy tobasco ketchup and put in whole grain bread, no buns. Yum! I'm basically spending the weekend figuring out how to play the new Sloan LP on my guitar. So back to it!
0 comments

Friday, October 06, 2006

Quite Rightly!

The return of CFF! Monz goes to the Far West (Lewis Avenue) to Ming Toy, a slightly dumpy place that came highly recommended by a certain top Lake County mover and shaker. Chicken egg roll and Mongolian Chicken, plus an entire bag of fortune cookies. Overall it was pretty good, but a few too many onyuns on the Mongolian. Monz had two of the cookies -- committing to the cookie (Monz has taught the importance of this for years), he received meaningful advice. Our advice for readers is that Saturday they should keep a lookout for Monz and if you see him call him Mello Yellow!
0 comments

Thursday, October 05, 2006

"It's Good for a Novelty, But I would Never Buy the T-Shirt!"

"well this year's tusetape ("Toos" or "Tuse" a nickname for the ME, as well as for the EIC -- it's a CD, but "tape" is the historical term) is overidden with...what's the word?... saddness, melancholy...and that's apparent not only in the music but the cartoons. It's clear that tuse has decided this is his swan song and he's far too old to play the hipper-than-thou college hipster and he's going to put it to rest with this collection.

With that in my head I plug the disk in and the first thing I hear is some sampled beats and british accented rap...some fucking guy telling the story of cidneralla in an uninterested and far-too-long way. we're off to a usual tusetape

morningwood -- yep, once again tuse is looking back to when he would like a teenager band like this. it's an ok tune, i listen to it.

Tuse remebers the glory days of grunge, the last time he was young enough to grab onto something. so he puts on a pearl jam tune, and in keeping with pj it's fucking horrible...really bad...it sounds like what they thought an outake from Quadophenia would sound like. but i'll grant you, two rocking tunes in a row, let alone present -- that's rare for a tuse tape.

ok, i also want to say something and I'm going to say it now rather than a more logical or in-order context. last night, i predicted there would be a corrine baily rae song on here.

edward bear -- i don't know who this guy is - bear -- I expected a burly voice, what I got was kinda wussy. my notes say "wussy voice"

coming up next, the chalets. Ok, this starts a sub-theme...we got some chicks, some whiny-ass chicks, I'm thinking maybe it's a dance tune, nope, some kind of pseudo-fake punk tune...kinda rocks, but the voice starts to grate and I'm waiting to hear this chick talk about her "sexy mistake" and she doesn't.

the avant-garde -- it sounds like something chuck wolry (who sings) would sing. Some music producer said "all the kids are into drugs so let's do a drug song" and hired chuck wolry to do it.

the bell rays. I don't know these people, they have a sista singing, it kinda rocked -- I like it!

on to amy millan. To the smug music guy, I had the amy millan when it was only available in canada

Boy least likely to (low, pained moaning sound): oh my God did this not rock. low point so far of the tape.

cold war kids -- this song was terrible. we've reached a new low. the screeching voice was so irritating it made me look forward to the next song...

...which was Bocephus the Third ("Hank Williams III") I thought this guy was supposed to be a punk rocker kid...it's good for a novelty but I would never buy a t-shirt.

nada surf -- we return to the theme of tuse looking back over his music life in all the smugness of those he lorded over. some tune that sounds straight out of 1983 -- poppy little inconsequential thing.

matthew puckett -- continuing the sub theme, here's a guy with a wussy voice singing about (voice high and whiny) "girl, what's a girl to do?, what's a girl to do?" - this tune sucked.

murs -- the cadence was fine, but reeked of being way oversampled.

foghat -- tuse continues his theme ...by including a tune released in the late 70's and disappeared. it doesn't show up on the classic rock radio. it doesn't reek of "look at this classic rock classic", it reeks of "look at all the kinds of music I listen to -- your attacks on me aren't true and I'm so hip."

pippettes - subtheme! chick. whining. my only comment is a question: why would you like this? I don't get it.

continuing sub theme -- be your own pet -- this tune's just bad, the chick voices are starting to blend in a shrillness nothing.

faithless -- well, you know that Monz just got back from europe, so i'm familiar with eurotrash, which is basically what this tune is.

hacienda brothers - now, i like this tune, it's cute. a cute tune. we're on a long awaited upswing now.

...but then comes #20 - Corrine Bailey Rae. (bomb blowing up sound). i didn't know it would fit so smoothly into your subtheme. at this point it becomes clear that tuse is embracing his feminine side.

juliana hatfield -- this song makes me sad because she used to be good.

dianne reeves. vocal jazz sucks, but i would expect a hipster to put something like that on just to show well-roundedness.

Don Lemon -- and we end this year's offering -- I don't remember this tune though I just listened to it.


All that and Monz still had time for a home barbequed steak sandwich on a rye roll, apple, banana, two Sargento (tm) light string cheese things and two fat free Jello (tm) things. He earned it!
4 comments

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Paging Doctor Monz!

Monz has a delightfully adequate burito lunch in Waukegan with She Who Cannot Be Named 2. More importantly, why did it take so long to blog this and why has the blog sucked of late? We offer two possibilities:

1) Don Lapre has unleashed a legion of evil forces to harrass the editors until the capitulate in their quest to expose his informercial iniquithy.

2) The editors are losing their moonlighting jobs are in the middle of major office warfare among their bosses.

We think #1 has more "explanatory power" but we'll let you be the judge!

Meanwhile, the Music Editor (ME) recently provided Monz with the 2006 edition of his cd compilation. Monz, who has endur...listened to these compilations for over 20 years, has some interesting comments which we will provide tomorrow.
0 comments

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Monz Has a Yummy Lunch and "We Feel Fine"!

Thanks to Monz for the vacation reports and filling in while the editors attended higher institutes of learning and failed to observe (as respectfully as possible) centuries-old religious customs. Today Monz had a very yummy, home grilled steak sandwich with some acutroments (sp?) that didn't come through the cell phone.

We acknowledge this is a lackadaisical(sp?) report of epiphanic news. To learn more (and we highly recommend this) go to We Feel Fine, load up the applet and search the upper ages for "dispondency," "existential horror," etc.
1 comments

Monday, October 02, 2006

Subway the Hard Way!



Monz again: apparently the editors have all gone MIA so I'm here to fill in before launching a search and rescue mission. Back to work with a vengeance this morning: in court first thing. I'm still tired and I didn't have time to put together a yummy lunch from home with last night's leftovers, so I ran over to Subway for a foot-long turkey on hearty Italian, with the switch of pepperjack cheese instead of their version of "American." I'm already missing the yummy Euro-lunches! I think the three fresh pastas on Isola Bella was the best lunch, though maybe that's just because it is sticking in my mind so much. The lunch at Zucca in Milan was also kind of yummy, and especially notable for the Campari cocktail, guzzled at the place of it creation. It was a really bitter drink that the tour guide was like a martini: it wasn't. Atill, it helped me get into the shopping mood and I bought some shoes, a leather jacket, and a bunch of shirts.
1 comments

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