Coming Soon, to a Neighborhood Near Me

Back in early October, the "civilizing" of my neighborhood commenced with the opening of Firewheel. And now comes part two: Today, I received confirmation of the openings of two more long-awaited places, which will come closely on the heels of one I already knew about. So here's the rundown:

WEDNESDAY
AMC 18 Theatres
FRIDAY
Starbucks in Firewheel Town Center
and...*drum roll* Chipotle in Firewheel Market

That's right, two-thirds of a Trifecta will be practically within walking distance of my house (and, as I told a friend a few minutes ago, if it were possible to have the entire Trifecta that close by, I would indeed have to walk, in order to keep from weighing 400 pounds).

It's also interesting to note that the Starbucks in Firewheel Center (the main "mall") will soon be joined by a sister store in Firewheel Market (the part out front). Just five years ago, I had to drive to Plano to get my java fix; now my own neighborhood is almost in danger of being over-Starbucked.

At any rate, with school being done for me after Thursday, there should be quite a "christening" of the new Chipotle by my friends and myself, and it won't take too much effort to find an excuse to go to the new theatre on Wednesday night (King Kong, anyone?). It'll be great to be on vacation and have so much cool stuff so close to home.

A cool gadget idea: Today at one of my schools, I walked by a fire extinguisher in a glass case where the "F" had been removed. That's right, it had become an IRE EXTINGUISHER. It occurred to me that such a thing would be quite a handy device to have around at times--spray someone with (gentle, non-lethal) chemicals, and they'd suddenly stop being mad at you. Perhaps they could invent a similar compound called Road Rage Repellent that you could keep in your car.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Once again, the QOTD comes from an exchange with a student; this one was jokingly lamenting the fact that I get to go to Subway for lunch and he has to eat in the school cafeteria. I decided to good-naturedly rub it in for a second...

ME: Yeah, I might have the Chicken Parmesan, or maybe the Buffalo Chicken. Mmmmm....
KID: (makes face)
ME: Oh, you don't like those? Which one do you like?
KID: Oh man, I forgot what it's called...it's the one with the meatballs.
ME: That would be called a "meatball sub."
KID: (laughs) That's it!

I also told him about how, on our Colorado trip last year, my friend Ben accidentally said he ordered a "meatlong football" instead of a footlong meatball.