Welcome to the Dollhouse, now get out!

When Dollhouse first aired me, Jessie, Ryan and Sara watched the first episode. I remember really liking it and we added to the season pass of our TiVo but that was on our old TiVo before it died. During the TiVo replacement process we decided not to deal with copying off Dollhouse because we figured we could just watch it on DVD when it came out. So.. Fast forward a bit.. Dad got Dollhouse on BlueRay and a few months ago got us an awesome BlueRay player. When we got the player we borrowed Dollhouse Season 1 and it sat in a pile, we never watched it because it seemed like so much to watch and we never have the time..

We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house again this year. I made a lime chili tilapia with acorn squash and Jessie made her raw pasta sauce. Towards the end of the night Jessie started to feel strep like conditions, when we got up Christmas Day we were in no hurry to run over to my brother's house because we were both now feeling sick and even debated going to the emergency room because urgent care was closed on Christmas Day..

What do you do in the winter when it's cold outside? Stay inside... Add to that not feeling good equals LOTS of staying inside and lots of TV. We caught up on all of our shows (Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Iron Chef America, Chopped and Monk) and went into the BlueRay pile.. First - My Name is Bruce which was a crazy silly Bruce Campbell movie, it was pretty funny but the movie was overshadowed by the theme song! (see diversion of the day)..

Speaking of Monk.. Wait, were we? Sure... Why not... Anyway, Monk.. We watched the last nine episodes over the last few days, if you ever liked that show I recommend watching at least the final few episodes. It could have been one of the best series finals of all time.. I was not a big fan of last season, but this season (especially the last few episodes) really made the entire show. You will be missed Mr. Monk... Thanks go out to Tony Shalhoub for brightening our lives for the last eight years!

Back to the Dollhouse.. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now Dollhouse, all on my list of all time best TV shows.. Joss Whedon has created four very distinct and very great shows. The only annoying thing about Dollhouse is that we now have to wait to watch the final few episodes in real time. There are three episodes left to the series. Low ratings and an odd concept led to a very early cancellation, at least this time he has gotten the chance to wrap up the storyline unlike Firefly.

---Diversion of the Day

How about a welcome home snow storm?

It snowed Sunday like a bitch... Well, Saturday evening into Sunday.. We got at least a foot or two.. Welcome back, right?

I have not blogged in a while because I didn't have internet on my PC for the ride home and as you know it can get away pretty quick.. I just got home from Tuesday dinner and am watching ICA while Jessie makes food for her luncheon tomorrow. Gwen made a turkey today and it came out really good, I don't normally like turkey but I enjoyed it quite a bit tonight. Joe brought Setcube which is the game of Set in a Scrabble type setting and Kevin brought Monty Python Flux so it was a fun night filled with fun games.. :)

So, back to my last blog... When last I wrote I was getting ready to leave for Animal Kingdom. I was happy to see that they added quite a bit to Animal Kingdom since the last time I was there, the safari was better than I remember and they opened Everest (a roller coaster) as well as the completed Dinosaur play area. Speaking of the safari.. I was getting on the ride and the guy on the platform looked familiar, I looked closer and realized it was a friend of mine I hadn't seen in years! When I worked for Lechters I met Justin who had at the time recently moved to the North East after working for Disney. We both left Lechters for Natural Surroundings and from there we both went to Best Buy. He left Best Buy and last I heard had moved out to the middle of the country so it was pretty crazy to see him working back at Disney! I hung out with him for a few minutes on his lunch break, we were going to hang out that night but he ended up having too much school work to do. Instead I ended up at Downtown Disney, Disney Quest and Pleasure Island.

Disney Quest was pretty lame for a single player, most of the games are at least two players if not four players so there was not too much to do by myself. Disney is in the process of changing over Pleasure Island to a sorta restaurant row. All of the old clubs are closed and they are starting to open up some new restaurants, I ate at one of them (forgot the name now, but it was the South American restaurant) which was really good. I got a skirt steak and sat outside on the water listening to live music, Downtown Disney is across the lake from Saratoga Springs and they had the Tree Houses lit up so you could see them across the lake.

...

When I arrived at Disney I saw a advertisement on the table in the hotel room for 40%-45% off your next trip provided that trip is booked while your currently in Disney and as long as you come again during 2010, well since me and Jessie are planning to go in Oct of 2010 I called the number and booked our trip. You actually had to call from the room which makes sense. I set up a week in a Fort Wilderness Cabin, if you set it up online it's almost $3,000 and by setting it up while there I ended up paying $1,500!

Monday me and dad went over to Epcot and finished up the Kim Possible missions that were available. Uncle Larry, Tina and Cameron came over and met us but we didn't stay long as we had dinner reservations over at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom. Cinderella's Round Table was an interesting experience, I guess I did once before when I was younger but I don't remember it. I was expecting the food to be somewhat generic because I figured you were paying for meeting Cinderella and sitting in the castle but the food ended up being real good. I had a salmon crab cake for an appetizer which was probably the star of the meal.

I woke up early Tuesday and headed out. I probably would have done better waking up later because I got stuck in real bad rush hour traffic in Orlando. Once out of Orlando it was mostly smooth sailing to get to North Carolina. This time I went to Keith and Beckie's house and Beckie made dinner. Rich came over but Harry and Nicole did not because Harry had the bronchitis.. Beckie made Taco Pie which was croissant dough in a baking pan with ground turkey, cheese, chips and spices, it was very good and I think I will try to recreate it for one of the Tuesday dinners. Speaking of great, she made a salsa which was so good I actually had her print me the recipe. I always enjoy hanging out with Keith, Beckie and Rich and it was nice to see them again.

Wednesday I drove from North Carolina to Virginia. Hung out with Robyn for lunch before heading over to Amy and Mitch's condo. I probably have not seen Mitch in five years and it was very fun to see him again, I was surprised at how young he still looks. I saw Amy earlier in the year but it's always awesome to see her, we had a great night doing nothing but playing cards, talking and listening to music.

Thursday was a LONG day on the road! I went shopping with Amy in morning before leaving which was the best part of the day. Got stuck in DC traffic, missed my exit in Delaware and ended up driving about 40 mins out of the way up 95. Got stuck in accident traffic in both Trenton NJ and crossing the bridge into Staten Island. By the time I finally got to Amber and Kris's apartment we had just enough time to eat before they left for a midnight showing of Avatar.

Friday I got up early and grabbed the Ferry from Long Island to Bridgeport CT. Friday ended up being a pretty great first day home. I met Holly for lunch and Lynz on her way home from work/doctors's appointment before finally getting home to see Jessie. I wanted to get home before Jessie but traffic nailed me again, this time on 395, so I got home a bit after her. Hung out with Jessie for a bit before meeting Lynz at a Barnacle concert in Johnston RI. Barnacle is a good band and the percussion guy was amazing, he had a set of bones in each hand and was playing two different percussion lines! If that was not amazing enough he grabbed a shaker in each hand and had that going while still playing the two bones.. Enough already? Nope.. He grabbed a tambourine and dropped it on the floor and started playing it with his foot!!!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday was a whole lot of cleaning and catching up on TV. Monday night I went out Christmas shopping with Lynz and Anja. Today I finished cleaning and wrapped all my presents. I came up with this great idea to make the boys (Tim and Rowan) boffer daggers, I could find any CPVC or pipe foam so I ended up ripping apart my old staff to make them daggers. I did the entire project (ripped apart old staff and made two daggers) in less than one hour!

---Diversion of the Day

Matt sent me this article today, interesting??

Future World

2nd day in a row I'm the first one up.. Spent the day over in Epcot yesterday.. Me, Uncle Larry and Cameron got over there for 9am (park opening) and did Test Track, Mission Space and Energy all before the crowds showed up, we were able to basically walk onto each of those rides. From about noon-close Test Track had around a 110 minute wait so it was good that we got on when we did. spaceship Earth was the first ride where we hit a line and that one was not too bad (20 minutes). Dad and Tina joined us after Spaceship Earth and we went over to the Land pavilion and Soarin. Soarin's line said 50 minutes but it ended up being over 90! They added some interactive stuff to do in the line but it was still pretty painful to wait that long.

After Soarin we ate lunch at the quick serve place and I got a goat cheese and beet salad and some corn chowder. Went from there to the Land ride and the Lion King living with the land movie to finish off the Land pavilion.

They recently changed the Sea pavilion, the replaced the entry with a Nemo ride and added a "Turtle Talk" show which is like Monsters Inc. Crush comes out and talks to the audience, I am in awe at they way they do those two shows. Obviously the lips don't sink 100% with the voice but it's close and the movements do sync which is crazy. Journey into Imagination and Honey I shrunk the Audience ended the day.

How big is Epcot? We went from 9am - 7:30pm and completed the 7 main buildings of Future World. We didn't step foot in Innoventions or the World Showcase.

Ate in the Land pavilion at the Garden Grill which is the rotating restaurant.. Cameron loved it because Chip, Dale, Pluto and Mickey were there and kept walking around and interacting with everyone. Chip snuck up on him (I don't really know how) and Cameron was so excited he fell out of his chair! The food was good and pretty cheap so no complaints on that end.

Dad left after dinner and the rest of us went to the UK for some beer and Illuminations. We managed to get a table in the Rose and Crown, when I say a table I mean the best table in the house. It was located outside and in perfect line with the show, we were so close firework debris landed on the table!

Today is Animal Kingdom and last I checked the weather it was going to be in the high 80s. I guess that cold front is thankfully over..

Iron Chef Cat Cora..

Not much has changed at Disney's Hollywood Studios except the name. Actually I guess that's not entirely true. We got to the park and upon looking at the show times decided to head over to Star Tours because they had an early morning "Jedi Academy" show. The Jedi Academy show is not supposed to be funny but when kids are involved there is usually some good laughs. There is a line of kids waiting to be Padawans, they take a bunch up on stage and teach them how to use a lightsaber. The guy who played the Jedi Master had an awesome sense of humor and he kept having to tell these two kids to face the audience. He would be teaching and almost every other sentence was "it might work better if you faced this way", or "it might work better if you turned around".. The Jedi Academy show might have been my favorite part of Hollywood Studios because the Jedi Master was just that cool, at one point he made a real bad joke and the audience didn't laugh so he waved his hand and said "you will find my jokes funny" and told the same joke again, of course this time we all laughed... :D

The other new things.. American Idol.. They have auditions in the morning and shows in the afternoon into evening, the audience judges and the winner gets a real American Idol audition. Toy Story ride.. I didn't ride it because the line was too long, it's a shoot 'em up ride where you get guns attached to your cars and have to get points while you drive around. Narnia show and props show.. They bring you into a cave and show you the entire plot to Prince Caspian and then open the doors so you can walk around to see clothes and props from the movie.

I left Hollywood Studios around 4 and went over to Epcot.. Epcot was very crowded and I spend the next few hours doing Kim Possible missions, I've now done missions in Mexico, Norway, China and Germany. While in Germany my locator tab broke, I went back to the booth to get another one and one of the guys who works there came with me to test it and we ended up hanging out while I finished Germany and did China. He had just gotten off work and was looking to hang out for awhile before going home, he was a nice guy but I was kinda glad when he left.

It had been cold all day and I finally caved and bought a new sweatshirt, it's an Epcot one of course but it's different than the one Jessie has. I got over to dinner a little early and they were really crowded, I ended up getting seated just a few minutes later than my appointment. Does cold weather effect Iron or am I looking for excuses?

I was having a real big problem warming up so I decided to get warming food, if you looked over the menu you would probably assume I would get the fish dish which was an entire fish cooked with oil, olives, greens, fennel and other spices. What I got instead was a Cinnamon chicken dish over rice which was good but certainly not Iron, I actually think my cini-maple chicken is better than her dish. My first course was a roasted red pepper and chick-pea soup which was very tasty and really did a good job of warming me up. Next came the chicken and the wine. Cat Cora has a series of signature wines, I had the Pinot Nior with dinner and every time I would start to think this meal is just eh I would have a sip of wine and be blown away once more, there are more flavors and textures in each sip than there were in the entire meal. I bought two bottles to take home.. For dessert I got doughnuts which came with raspberry and vanilla dipping sauces. I tried each separately which was good and then both together which was better.

So, to sum up.. I would not put her in the same realm as the other Iron Chefs but she is certainly not anywhere near as bad as Nakamura.. I will update my Iron Chef list blog later and rank them.. :)

I was the first one up this morning.. :D Going to Epcot with everyone today.. I thought today was Animal Kingdom but they were wrong when looking at their restaurant reservations.

Disney Dec 2009 Day 2

Yesterday started the night before.. When I was getting ready for bed we realized we had no blankets or pillows for the living room beds.. I called the lobby around 11pm and finally got blankets and pillows at 1:30 after calling them 3 more times.. Between that frustration and my dad watching TV in his room it took me a long time to get to sleep so I was extra upset when at 5am uncle Larry turned on all the lights to make coffee! He came in and was trying to turn on just the light above the sink but there didn't seem to be a switch to do that. After he started coffee he went back into his bedroom and I was now wide awake and grumpy.. Took a shower in the living room bathroom which was lame because that shower has a single shower head and it sprays in a straight line so it's like pouring a pitcher of water..

Dad was hanging out when I got out of the shower and I tried to convince him to come to the Magic Kingdom, but he decided to wait for them to get up and moving. The Magic Kingdom had "extra" morning hours yesterday so I went over for the early opening. I went on a few rides and was very impressed with the Monsters Inc show. The Monsters Inc show is a new addition to Tomorrowland, while you're in the waiting room for the show they tell you text jokes to them so they can use them in the show which I thought was a joke but turned out to be real. I don't know what magic they use to do this but it's an animated movie where they interact with the audience! Imagine being at a comedy club but the comedians are cartoons, at first I figured it was pre-programmed but then the person sitting next to me got harassed so I knew it was real. I would be bold enough to say that one show is worth going to the Magic Kingdom. They also changed up the line for Space Mountain and added video games you can play while waiting in line. Met up with everyone as they were coming off Pirates and I went on Splash Mountain with uncle Larry and Cameron and got soaked! I've been on that ride many many times and never got as wet as I did this time..

Back to the hotel for a nap and change of clothes.. After nap I went over to Epcot and quickly remembered why that is the best part of Disney. I didn't get real far actually, I went in and found me and Jessie's "Leave a Legacy" marker right away, man we looked young in that (put up in 2001). Next onto Starship Earth which they changed a bit, they updated some of the special effects and added a computer to the cars which asks you questions about how you want your future to look and then shows you some of the new or upcoming technological advancements that can make your future a reality! The ride now drops you off into an area which has some activities, one of them tested your reaction time, memory, and hand eye coordination and showed how in the future they can use a machine like this to perform physicals, uploading the data to the doctors office. They also had a 3D operation game which was really neat looking.

Went from there to Innoventions where I spent the rest of the day. I played a waste management game, they would ask you questions about your usage and then you get a "truck" of garbage, you have to bring the truck over to the recycle station and separate trash from recyclables, then to a trash burner to burn whatever you can and finally to a land fill where you can make a nature preserve with your remaining trash. Also played a Piggy Bank game where they teach you how to save money by bringing a piggy bank from station to station and collecting coins, diversifying your loot to hide it from the wolf and fighting the inflation balloon.. From there I went to "Sum of all Thrills" which shows you how you need math to do things like build roller coasters, once you build it you ride it on a mechanical arm which whips you about to simulate the motion of your coaster. From the wild to the mild, the next stop was the Segway which I got to ride up and down a pre-set course for free! It was a bit tricky at first but once you get the hang of it you can move around pretty good, it steers like a motorcycle and the only thing that was tricky was mounting and dis-mounting. What else? Oh, right, then I played a fire prevention game which was there before but still lots of fun and watched the effects of wind and weather on a house.

Finally left Innoventions right around 6 and went up to Canada to watch Off Kilter which had their last show of the night at 6:15. I got two more of their CDs and there are apparently two more which they were out of yesterday. If you don't know Off Kilter, they are a band very much in the vain of Kilt and Great Big Sea. Check your iPods because you may already have their first CD.. ;)

Decided to eat while I was in Epcot so I went over to the UK and had me some fish and chips while sitting on a quiet bench at the lake. The fish and chips was very good and apparently got me in the UK mindset (more on that later).. After dinner I accepted a Kim Possible mission which led me from the UK to Norway to Mexico. The way it works is they give you a cell phone which gives you hints to lead you from place to place, the cell phone interacts with items around the park to make them change, etc. These could possibly be the best thing that could happen to make Epcot even better, there are (from what I've been told) 7 different cell phones, in each cell phone there is a mission in each of the Worlds so that's a lot of different missions! I see a long day of me doing nothing but playing these ahead.. What a great way to make sure you see everything in the World Showcase.

After I solved my mission I went over to America to watch some of the Candlelight Performance which was very pretty, the left and right side of the choir was dressed in white to look like snow, the middle of the choir was dressed in green and those at the top of the tree in gold so that when you stood back it looked like a giant Christmas tree! I thought it was going to be a parade but it was just a stage show of choir music. I watched a song before heading back to the UK to get a seat for the fireworks show. I went up and ordered a beer and the guy said $8, I handed him a $10 and then pulled my coin purse out expecting a $2 coin! Silly America and our reluctance to use coins..

I filmed most of the fireworks show with my camera phone but can't post them because the hotel blocks youtube as R rated content.. I will have to post it later.. After the park closed I went over the Boardwalk so I could see where Cora's restaurant was. Got back to the room and all was quiet because dad and uncle Larry went to the store to get breakfast stuff. I turned on the little light over the coffee maker and went to sleep so that there would be no "lights on" event again this morning.

Got up and took a shower in dad's bathroom which has a great shower, it has a real shower head and a rain shower head so it was a nice happy making shower. Uncle Larry made egg sammiches and I'm now sitting in the lobby on the WiFi because dad is using the room internet to do work.

Today.. Heading to Hollywood Studios (used to be called MGM)..

Disney Day 1..

Last night I relaxed in the hot tub and watched some Daily Shows on my laptop. Lag time was pretty horrible and kept buffering but I got caught up to date.. Woke up this morning and finished the drive to Disney.. Got to Disney at the same time as my dad, uncle Larry, aunt Tina and their grandson Cameron. Me and dad went over to the Magic Kingdom to get me my annual pass and food discount card, I managed to convince him to come into the park with me and we went to a few rides before meeting back up with Larry, Tina and Cameron to head to dinner.. The lines were all very small which is a good thing. I was a little disappointed in the lack of Christmas decorations, the only place that was decorated was the Main Street area.

Tonight dinner was at Citricos which is in the Grand Floridian hotel. I had Berkshire Pork Two Ways which was Pork Tenderloin and Braised Pork Belly with Herbed Gnocchi, Heirloom Apples,

Swiss Chard, and Madeira Broth. The wine they recommended with it was the King Estate Pinot Noir, Oregon ’07 which was a little too sweet for me. I thought the meal would have been better with a more full wine but oh well.. For dessert me and Tina split a Warm Chocolate Banana Torte with Vanilla Ice Cream which was really good.

We are now in the bar/observation deck in the hotel. We are in the Bay Lake Tower which is at the Contemporary hotel. Our room is on the 12th floor and we have a wonderful view of the Magic Kingdom. The only problem I have is that the room does not have locks on the bathrooms..

Speaking of hotels, they re-opened the tree houses. There are 60 units and they attached them to Saratoga Springs which means they are part of the Disney Vacation Club..

Play pool for money?

Went to dinner with Harry, Nicole, Josh, Keith and Beckie at a place called Wasabi over by Keith and Beckie's house. If you remember from the other day I had sushi with Jessie, Holly and Louie and had these things I had never seen called Johnny Mussels.. I almost died when I saw "Spicy Mussels" on the menu at Wasabi because they were the same thing.. So, now I saw (and ate) them twice! They were just as good at this place.. The regular sushi and maki was not quite as good but it was still very good. It was nice to see Beckie and Keith again and we had a great time over dinner.

After dinner Harry, Nicole, Josh and I went to Rodie's Tavern which is a biker bar over by Harry's house. The owner was an awesome guy who seemingly bought the bar to have fun. He goes around to each person and offers them challenges like beating his score at a boxing game for a entire day's worth of food and drink. I was shocked to see they had Yuengling on tap, I even more surprised to find it was only $1 per beer and/or $6 for a pitcher! We played a few games of pool before the owner came over and asked if anyone wanted to challenge him to a game for a beer. Harry took the bet. This guy was good and Harry was just as good if not better! The owner won the first game and they played double or nothing on game 2 which Harry won. Very fun night.. I really felt at home at Harry's house and was kinda sad to leave..

Left Harry's with the intention of meeting up with people in Duluth but as I was most of the way there I found out nobody was available that night.. doh.. I could have just stayed at Harry's house another night, but oh well.. Since I was almost at Duluth I figured I would stop at the sports bar and get a Fat Tire while I figured out my plans. After some research I booked a room using Marriott points in Jacksonville Florida. After a long drive in which I got pulled over I arrived at the hotel here. I was talking to Jessie and being very aware of the speed limits when I passed a cop. I checked my cruise control (65) and checked the speed limit (55) and figured I was safe. The cop pulled out and insisted I was going 80! I argued with him for a bit once it was obvious he was going to give me a ticket and he basically said since I'm out of state he knows I won't fight it but that he would write it out for 75 in a 55! WTF!! I guess the lesson here boys and girls is don't drive at night on back roads in Georgia with Gay Rights and Mets bumper stickers!

This morning I got up and went for a walk around the hotel, ate lunch, went to a state park in the swamp and went to a state park on a peninsula. Took lots of pics and even one video which are posted to Flickr and Youtube respectively. I have been taking some very nice pics this trip if I do say so myself.

Tonight? I don't know.. Go to the pool? Grab some dinner? Just be lazy.. Tomorrow I drive to Disney.

Rock Slides and Blizzards...

I'm sitting at Harry's house in North Carolina.. We are going to go get lunch and see a movie soon but I figured I would try and bang out a blog since I have not in a week. I tried last night but I was exhausted, I did however upload lots of new pics to Flickr last night (some from Nov and some from Dec).

Sunday night (last Sunday) me and Jessie met Kaitlyn and her friend Bean at the People's Pint. When I checked their website they didn't have anything listed for entertainment so I was pleasantly surprised to find the Trad Sessions were indeed on for the night. My favorite beer of theirs is the Slippery Slope which was apparently making it's return to the menu that night! They switch between that and a few others to keep things new so it worked out well that we had postponed dinner from last week. Not only would Slippery Slope not have been there but there would have been no trad sessions because they are every other week. The session players started out small but grew as the night went on. Kaitlyn had just come from her family's house and had a bunch of left over desserts in her car so after dinner we walked out and ate a bit in the parking lot before coming back in for some more beer and music. Didn't get home till real late but it was a great time..

Monday was a somewhat quiet day, Nurit came over for lunch and I had dinner with Janine. Nurit and I went to the Courthouse and then spent some time at Victoria Station and Wonderland Books, I found out that not only is there a book that Howl's Moving Castle was based on but there is a sequel! I added them both to my Audible wish list. Janine and I ate at Red Robin in Millbury.. The Millbury FYE is closing so they have everything on clearance sale, the prices still are not very good, but they are better than normal "in-store" prices. I went to look up if all FYEs were closing or just that one so I went to Trans World Entertainment's site and found out that they own Suncoast now!? Both Suncoast and Saturday Matinee are listed as their stores now.. Odd...

Tuesday.. Me and Jessie went down to NYC to see Storm Large at Joe's Pub. The trip was not too bad and we arrived a bit before the show, parking was easy and there was a Starbucks and Gamestop nearby so we had no problem wasting time before the show. We had dinner reservations for 6:00pm with the show starting at 7:30pm. The dinner was just ok, but that's not why you go there.. So... Storm.. The reason to drive to NYC in the middle of the week? You betcha, she was amazing. I would say the best thing of the show was seeing her do I Want You to Die and Hopelessly Devoted to You. I know there a few of her concerts on the web and I really hope that show will show up. I was trying to grab Hopelessly Devoted for my diversion but the only live versions have really bad sound quality. The only thing I feel robbed about was that they didn't sell shirts between the shows. They had them (I saw them being counted before the show) but they didn't want to sell them because they needed to clear the house.

Wednesday.. I went to lunch with Lynz, I picked her up at work and we went to a lunch place we have been to before, funny thing.. That lunch place is right near Holly's house! It was really funny, I was driving there going I know this place and then I realized why.. Two times South in the same day.. After lunch I got my oil changed for the trip and then I went back South with Jessie to meet Holly and Louie for dinner at Johnny's Peking Tokyo. They have an appetizer called Johnny Mussels which are mussels with eel sauce, tobiko and a few other things. They are so friggin good! Apparently Holly and Louie get them every time they go there, I can see why.. I got tuna tar-tar and bunches of sushi & sashimi, everything was great and I want to go there more.. After dinner we played pool and I lost all three games! Game 1 was me and Jessie v. Holly and Louie.. Game 2 was me and Louie v. Jessie and Holly.. Game 3 was me and Holly v. Jessie and Louie..

Thursday.. I packed and went to Lynz's house for lunch, we went to a cafe near her and got sammiches.. After lunch I drove to Matt's house in NJ.

----

Drive to Disney part 1..

I picked up Matt at his job and went to his house for the night.. Sile made dinner and afterwards we watched a Ricky Gervais stand up DVD. I never saw him do stand up and it was very very funny.. He did a bit about an HIV awareness pamphlet for gay men, I was laughing so hard it hurt.. That and his bit about glory holes were probably the best bits of the DVD.

Woke up early and drove to Virginia, got to Robyn's house around 2pm. Hung out and chatted for a while before going to get an early dinner at a fish restaurant near her job. They had a Gorgonzola bacon special sauce which I got on a Sea Bass, it was really good and the portion size was not too big.. After dinner I drove the grip to Harry's house in NC. I got a ticket on the way when they randomly lowered the speed limit of the highway from 75 to 65 and then to 55! They had cops at each lowering point and were pulling everyone over. Finally got to Harry's around 11pm.. Hung out and went to bed pretty late which made the early rise and drive a bit annoying..

Well ok.. That's not really what made the drive annoying.. The Rock Slide on Rte 40 which was the first part.. Rte 40 on the NC/Tenn boarder is closed and has been since October, apparently there was a bad rock slide and they are estimating March to clean it up. The Blizzard was the other part! It was raining when I left Harry's house around 6:40am and by the time I got to the boarder it was snowing BAD! I decided to listen to the gps which told me to take 40 to 25 which went over and through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ride over them was nice but would have been much better if not for the blizzard. Anyway, after 7+ hours of driving I finally got to the Parthenon in Nashville. I really don't think you can get a real idea of how big the Parthenon is when you see it on TV, I took some amazing pictures which are up on Flickr.. The one of me standing in front of Athena will give an idea of how big it is.. The Parthenon in Nashville was first built in 1897 but they had to fix it up a few times, the statue of Athena was finished in 2001. The entire place is painted as it was in Ancient Greece.. They have an American Art museum in the basement (under the Parthenon) and they have some of the original sculptures in the main room against the walls. 7+ hours of driving got me back to Harry's around 10:30pm.. That's right, left Harry's at 6:40 and returned at 10:30.. Long ass day of driving...

I slept late today (around 10am) and lazed about with Harry.. We went to the Jockey underwear store and ate lunch.. Now we are just watching stuff on YouTube before dinner..

---Diversions of the Day