I’m a "beta-tester" for Joffrey’s, originally uploaded by Claudia Snell.

Original post about the beta-test :
Joffry’s coffee beta test for bloggers - WOOT!

It’s really official now - I got the coffee and am actually drinking some of it right now. It’s great! They sent me a flavor called “Jamaican Me Crazy”. It seems to have a slight vanilla taste. YUM!!!

I would certainly buy this stuff if I see it. I must confess, I usually do not venture into the “boutique” coffees much. I’m more of a “price-shopper”. This stuff is good for when you want more than just some “liquid-awake” though. It’s for enjoying (as if I have time for that - ha!).

Anyway. I’m off to do a million things that must get done or the universe will implode. Or, more accurately, people will act as if the universe is imploding which is actually more unpleasant than a literal universe implosion because it’s never-ending as opposed to one big catastrophe and it’s over - ugh!!!

Thank you Joffrey’s for the fun taste-test! I’m happy I played along.

Thank you Trainstopping for sending me the link to Joffrey’s. Lovin’ it!

2008 St. Patrick’s Day Parade, originally uploaded by Claudia Snell.

Twister is great! The kids love him. He shows up at all the important events around the city. He’s very entertaining at the Tornadoes games. I just have one question. What is Twister?? He looks like he could be a dog or a bear or maybe some type of panther/cat-type animal. I decided to take a poll to see what everyone else thinks. I’ve also allowed for an “other” option for those of you who think he’s some other type of animal - please do share what you think it is, it’ll be a lot more fun that way.

I don’t want to leave out the other super-awesome mascot of Worcester, Finz. Everyone loves Finz too- check out the crowd of kids all trying to give him a hug. But I am also very sure that Finz is a shark so no big questions about him

Feb. 24, originally uploaded by Claudia Snell.

Wow - it was so nice out today that we actually ventured out. Snow was melting everywhere.

While we were out looking for adventure we popped out to Carl’s Oxford Diner. We’ve heard a lot about how great it is so we had to check it out.

I couldn’t believe how much food we got! I had heard the portions are giant but it’s still quite a surprise when you see it all.

I had some pecan waffles (which were great!) and couldn’t even eat half of it. Thank goodness for the take-home box, now I have dinner too. We all really enjoyed the place. Everyone’s breakfast was great. Everyone got more than enough to eat. The people there were super friendly. We’ll go again even though it’s a bit out of the way. Here’s directions, some other reviews and a map to get you there.

That’s about it - nothing else too exciting to pass along, but Sunday shouldn’t be too exciting - there’s all next week for “excitement”.

I had a really nice surprise this morning - Wormtown Taxi posted his list of 10 excellent blogs and mine was one of them - woot!

So, now I’m going to spread more blogosphere-love by sharing my favorites.

There are a few that are already part of this fun “Excellent Blog Award” list-making game that I also read every day: Daily Worcesteria, Hyphoid Logic, Wormtown Taxi and Papamoka Straight Talk but just repeating everyone else’s lists is kinda cheating so I won’t count them as part of my “official” list. I did want to at least mention that I really enjoy reading what these folks have to say. They are all “most excellent bloggers”.

I’m sure my post won’t be as entertaining as Hyphoid Logic’s list, but here it goes…

Claudia’s most excellent blog choices

Bread and Love
This is a friend of mine in the “real” world - and she’s just fantastic. Her blog is a really cool bit of homeyness and good food. It’s just really “her” which is why it rocks!

Worcester Love
OK, not a blog really in the sense that they haven’t structured their web site in what would would be called a “blog” type format but they most certainly are vlogging and I totally love it! I can’t wait for the next season.

Punky Style
I really like this fun blog! She’s got a great sense of style and a very fun way of delivering it. The design on her blog fits perfectly too - NICE JOB!

Web Designer Wall
OMG!! I would not know what to do without my Web Designer Wall fix - tutorials, art, inspiration and freebies from an incredible designer/artist. (did I gush enough yet? I do not think so). Go look for yourself.

Earth Friendly Gardening
I found this cool blog while working on a project at work. There’s a lot of great information and beautiful pictures. It’s just really well done.

Pie and Coffee
While I don’t always agree with the point of view I do like this blog , it’s got good, thoughtful content. Since I’m not one of those people that needs to have everyone agreeing with me all the time it works for me. Certainly gives me stuff to think about and I like that.

TrainStopping
Oh my… this one made me totally re-think my previous thinking about possibly using the commuter rail to get to Boston for work. I’m not loving the Pike but it doesn’t look like the train will cure everything either. Great information and much more realistic than stuff written by folks that don’t actually use the thing.

Aral Balkan
Lots of tips, information, reviews and whatnot from web guru, Aral Balkan. Yep, more geek stuff. Can’t help it - I totally love it

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents
And MORE web-geekness. Zeldman is another leader in web design - just brilliant. (yes, if you are a web geek you should know him). His blog is always entertaining. Includes links to Happy Cog and A List Apart. All three sites are must-read if you build sites.

Pink Granite
Just a really nice blog about living in Central Massachusetts. It’s great to see all the different voices online.

Ok, that’s it for now. My list of 10 excellent blogs. Like it? Didn’t like it? Did I miss something? Let me know. I’m always looking for feedback and new stuff to read

Update on all the blog-love

I just wanted to thank the bloggers who showed me link-love during our “Excellent Blog Fest”. The eWard was originally awarded to this blog by Wormown Taxi. And then by Papamoka Straight Talk. Their comments were really nice - thank you both! The link-love for this blog also was shared by Train Stopping and Daily Worcesteria. I also got a lot of great comments on this post.

Thank you everyone! Although it’s not an official award from any big organization, I guess you can say we all had an outbreak of mutual-blog-appreciation. It was really nice. (aaawwwww - sweet!)

Yep, I’m late posting this. It’s already out there in the Worcester Bloggosphere but I wanted to show support for Kaz and Andrea too. Their videos are a lot of fun and now you can buy the first season on DVD! That’s 10 episodes of Love, WOOT!

Also, news on their site says that they are working on more Worcester Love for us all - Yippee!!

Go to worcesterlove.com for more videos and information about the DVD.