“Prince George’s Pizza”?
February 10, 2008, 12:40 PM
My parents – both of them this time – came up to visit this weekend. They arrived Saturday morning, and left midday Sunday. What a fun time we had! We went to IKEA in College Park, and bought stuff. Mom got a new computer chair for her classroom (replacing one I got for free at Potomac Hall), and I got some mirrors that I’m planning to mount on the wall above my bed. I was also interested in getting some picture frames, but as they didn’t have the kind I wanted, we skipped on that.
These little mirrors are really cool. I got the idea after visiting my cousin Kate and her husband Nathan, and seeing these same mirrors over their fireplace arranged 3×3. The whole mirror unit is one square foot, and about four inches square in the center is mirror, and the rest is a wide wood frame. I think it will look great in the bedroom, after I stain the wood to match the bed. The style is called Malma.
Also, a surprise at IKEA: In those little “Living in [whatever] square feet” displays they have where they show an entire house, they of course show the bathroom. The surprise came when, being silly, I lifted up the toilet seat to make it look more “lived in”:
Whoa! That was something I wasn’t expecting. When I’ve gone through and lifted a few toilet seats at Lowe’s, again just to be silly, you just see the dry, empty toilet bowl. That was a surprise. Of course, one has to wonder what prompted them to do this on every single toilet in the showroom. I also am guessing that it’s like that at every store, and not just at the one in College Park. One has to wonder if it’s simply a matter of really covering one’s bases, or if people in the past have mistaken the display toilets in the showroom for an actual restroom…
Then after IKEA, my parents wanted to see where I worked, so we went straight from IKEA to the College Park Metro station, and rode on into DC. My parents also got to see single-tracking for the first time, as Metro was doing acceptance testing on more new Alstom cars in the area between Greenbelt and College Park stations, using Track 2 for that purpose. Thus we caught our Green Line train to Branch Avenue on the Greenbelt side. It also turns out that my father, who is and always has been a bit of a motorhead, hadn’t ridden Metro in a LOOOOOOOOONG time, as this was his first time hearing the new door chimes. Mom also commented that she’d never been on the section of the Metro where we were riding, as the furthest up the Green Line she had ever been prior to this was Fort Totten.
Speaking of Dad, though, we had a bit of fun with him around Prince George’s Plaza station. Now mind you, we hadn’t had anything to eat all day, aside from a pretzel at IKEA, so Dad had food on the brain. When we got into Prince George’s Plaza station, he thought it said, “Prince George’s Pizza” at first, and even rationalized it, thinking that it was a nice touch, having pizza right at the Metro. Still, Mom and I found it quite amusing. When we got back, I even did up a photo of the sign to read that:
And admittedly, that would be a good name for a pizza joint in Prince George’s County. And based on a quick Google search, no one, either in PG County or elsewhere, has made use of “Prince George’s Pizza” as a name. Google returns nothing (at least until Google’s spider finds this entry).
Otherwise, though, the parents loved the office. They got to see everything, and one must admit – my office is pretty cool. They also got one of their little boy’s business cards, which you have to admit, is pretty cool. I also showed off the Mac, to which Dad said, “My instincts are useless here,” as Dad has little to no Mac experience, and Mac OS X is a very different beast than Windows. Compare to the Lappy, which is currently running Linux only, where Dad said that his instincts are less useless than on the Mac.
Then from there, we went to downtown Silver Spring, and had dinner at this place called Austin Grill, which was pretty good.
Then on Sunday, we went out for breakfast, and then the parents headed home. All in all, we had fun! This was also neat because it was the first time I’ve had them both overnight together. Dad had never stayed overnight here before (but had come for the day before), and Mom had come up by herself on previous occasions. Now I need to figure out a weekend to come down and see them, as I’ve not been to Stuarts Draft since December…
Web site: Downtown Silver Spring - why not?
Song: Another video, this one being a commercial for Gateway from the mid-1990s. I first saw it on Gateway's "System CD" when we bought our Gateway 2000 P5-90 back in 1995. Hideous acting, yes. But it's funny. The commercial is funny because at first you think, oh, how nice, the father is getting this wonderful computer for his daughter that is "able to grow as [she] grow[s]." Of course, then the father opens the door, and he shows that he's actually got a room full thirty or so computers. It's like, Yeah, you think that's nice, look at all of the expensive toys that I've got!
Quote: Speaking of videos, though, does anyone have a copy of the other videos that came from the Gateway 2000 System CD from that era? I haven't seen the video where the cow puts on the sunglasses in ages, along with the music video of Monte Warden singing "Give My Heart a Break".