21st Century Shopping

It's a yearly ritual here in upstate South Carolina. Upon threat of snow or ice, Greenvillians rush to the grocery store to stock up on bread and milk.

Me, I need milk and frozen dinners since I refuse to cook [Organic Classics are delish.]

We have this cool new grocery store called Bloom. Why would I write about such a thing? Because Bloom is a store for the 21st century!

Don't you hate to wander around a grocery store looking for stuff? Bloom has little touch screens all over the place which will show you a map of stuff. You can scan your items as you shop with a little hand held device, keep track of the total, and instantly check out instead of waiting for the cashier to scan your items. They're open 24 hours [why the heck does Publix close at 10pm???] You can even create a shopping list online and print it out at the store! Too bad I only grocery shop upon threat of snow.

Best of all, there's a big silver robot in the parking lot to help you park and carry your groceries [I made that up.]

I sure hope it snows tomorrow.

Why Newspapers Are Dying

Is it any wonder newspapers are dying.

My friend Chris Sligh, who just auditioned last night on American Idol, is creating quite a buzz on the Internet [read about my trip with him to his initial audition.] Paula has hinted that he could win the whole thing. He's mentioned in today's issue of USAToday. His audition clip was shown and discussed this morning on "The Today Show" (Meredith said she loves him, last year's 2nd place winner Katharine McPhee turned her nose up at him!) Mike Gallagher talked about him on his radio show. His audition clip is #5 at AOL. He was the star of the Fox News at 10 o'clock last night, with 3 stories about him scattered across the hour. He's the biggest thing to happen to Greenville, SC in quite some time.

And not one word in the local Greenville News.

Or maybe it's just the Greenville News, since he's on the front page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and on the front page of their website.

The Lady and Sons

I'm in the process of creating a new worship background website and was in Savannah this week to take some photos.

I've been to Savannah twice before and have tried to eat in the famed "The Lady and Sons" restaurant with no luck. The place is so crazy crowded all the time you simply can't get in. There's like a 3 hour wait.

One trip I thought, "well I'll eat late and go there about 3 o'clock." I was turned away - they were booked for the rest of the day!

Thankfully nobody's in Savannah this time of year, plus the local college hadn't started yet, so my buddy Kevin and I got in with only a 15 minute wait. What a thrill - I told the waitress it was finally a privilege and honor to be a guest.

And it was worth the wait. The place is in a unique 3-story building. We ate on the third story and took an elevator to our table. Each floor is sort of like a separate restaurant with its own buffet.

You can order from a menu but skip it and get the buffet. It's the finest southern cardiac cookin cuisine you'll ever eat.

And the bread... a delicious cheese biscuit and cornbread that looked like a pancake. Pour some syrup on it.

The only sad part of the meal was the dessert. Instead of being on the buffet, the waitress brings out 3 choices in teenie little bowls: a scrawny piece of cake, a molecule of banana pudding or a teaspoon of peach cobbler. The worst part is that it's all on the tray for you to drool over but you can have only one. What's up with that?