Ice to Malt you

This past weekend we went to Syracuse and all we saw was a lousy Motel 6. Yes, thanks to Hurricane Ernesto, the weather was sufficiently bad to keep us from enjoying the great outdoors...or the New York state fair anyway.

It's great that Motel 6 exists and all - it's a cheap place to stay and you can be assured it will be relatively clean - but it's just so spartan. I know I know, you get what you pay for, but jeez. We've been to two of these things now and they don't even have kleenex in the rooms. In any case, this one was particularly bad because we were forced to take a smoking room. That's what we get for leaving the booking so late. But it has really brought home how nice it is to live in a city where smoking indoors has become a thing of the past. For the life of me I still can't figure out why people still smoke. Bleccchh.

Anyway, we didn't really spend our WHOLE weekend at the motel. To do that, we would have needed Alcohol. So we went to the liquor store...

No seriously, we did. But we all wanted coolers - cuz LCBO has spoiled us for pre-mixed drinks. We come to find out that the liquor stores in NY don't sell coolers. That's a grocery item. So, off we go to Wegman's and grab the first thing we see - Smirnoff Ice (or Smirnoff Rasperry in our case) - thinking Great, a vodka cooler! Perfect! Or so we thought.

Only it wasn't. It was a malt-based drink (check the label), a fact that became painfully obvious after we got back to the motel, cracked one open, and took a swig. Not horrible, but it certainly wasn't vodka. And being Smirnoff, one just makes an assumption.

Anyway, we had our drinks, some more than others, and headed off to a sad little dance bar called Trexx. And we tried again to get a decent cooler - this time with a Bacardi Silver - assuming again, being Bacardi, that the alcohol content would be rum. Wrong again. And shame on us for assuming. Seems the malt liquor lobby has a strangle hold on the Syracuse market. Or maybe it's all of New York State. Hell, for all I know Malt is coming to Canada soon.

So if you're with me... bad bar + bad liquor = bad time, right? Well, yes and no. Thankfully, the guys we went with were having fun on the dancefloor, and there were enough tragic figures around the bar that those of us who were driving (and unable to imbibe) had plenty of fodder for our acid wits. So it wasn't a complete loss. And it did keep us out of the Motel 6. The next morning though...

To add insult to injury, the always anticipated morning visit to IHOP was cancelled when we found out the local franchise had closed. We tried compensating with a trip to Denny's, but it's just not the same.

The whole pancake experience is based on the large selection of syrups available from IHOP: butter pecan, raspberry, blueberry. With Denny's, you get a choice between maple syrup and maple-syrup-flavoured table syrup. Not quite the horn of plenty in the syrup department. Not to slur them too much though. What we did have (and Mel and I both ordered the same thing - a Criole scramble) was both yummy to taste and, well, actually pretty disgusting to look at. See for yourself.

Despite missing the fair due to inclement weather, getting absolutely soaked during the liquor store run and the subsequent night on the town, and having to do without IHOP, the trip wasn't a complete loss. As always, the Carousel mall presented us with plenty of eye candy and both Mel and I had, for the first time ever, great success at H&M. We each walked away with a few new outfits. Add to that additional purchases at Pac Sun, Old Navy, and Target, and you'll be seeing us both (Mel especially) sporting new looks this fall season.

Go ahead, invite us to your next party if only to see our new couture. You won't be disappointed.