I didn't end up going to see Book of Mormon, they were sold out and I didn't get there early enough to get in the stand by list. It's probably better anyway because I was really tired and ended up taking a nap before dinner. I ate at a place across the street from the hotel and got some very tasty scallops. It ended up being a pretty laid back night, after dinner I went back to the room and watched Glee and putzed around the hotel for a bit before heading to bed.. I know, very unlike me to not go wander.
Spent Thurs and Friday getting ready for FI because I always tend to wait till the last minute when doing that stuff, I will be making a concerted effort to change that. In that realm I am planning on working on my armor on Monday, I want to fix the straps (they broke during game and had to be quickly patched with thread and duct tape) and add back holsters for shot guns. My new additions to it look really cool, go check flickr for some pics I took while at FI.
Left for DC right after game on Sunday and it took me forever to get here, got stuck in Manhattan due to construction and didn't get to hotel till almost 4am. Monday and Tuesday have been low key, get out of class, nap, eat, sleep.. Monday night I tried to get new shoes at REI but they were out of my size and ended up eating a shrimp and crab dish at a placed called Coastal Flats near REI. The guy at REI called the store in Conshohocken PA and they have one in stock and on hold for me. I am going to go there on the way to Laire on Friday. Last night I had a hankering for some red meat so I called around to find grass fed steaks, I found one place that is mostly grass fed (Capital Grill) and another that has 100% grass fed burgers (Clyde's). I opted for the burger which I think was a good choice, I got a tuna/salmon tartar appetizer and a bacon/pepper jack burger. After dinner I watched the season finale of Glee, it was ok but they spent too much time on the "oh look we're in NYC" and not enough time on the competition.
I am finally not feeling super tired although I can't say I slept well last night, I'm not loving my Sheraton experiment and may be going back to Marriott soon. The beds are not as comfortable and the bath tubs seem to be very small, at first I thought it was just the NYC one that had a small bath tub, but this one does too. Plus it smells like a cheap whore in the hotel lobby, elevator and hallways. At first I thought I must have been walking behind some girl who was over perfumed but I can't imagine every time I walk around I'm following the same person. The hotel must just use it as an air freshener.. I'm certainly wishing I was at the Courtyard or Residence Inn which are both a block away.
Don't know what I'm doing tonight, but there is a place in DC running a double feature of Nausicca and Spirited Away, they serve food and have happy hour prices on drinks. I will see what time I get out of here if it's worth going into the city.
I was trying to decide on my Thurs night / Friday plans. I ended up deciding to check out of hotel tomorrow morning and then drive to Philly after class. This is a benefit in many ways, one - and most importantly - I won't have to deal with DC traffic on Friday morning of Memorial Day Weekend and, two - it will put me closer to REI and eventually Laire, three - there is a Celtic Music Faire in Philly tomorrow and The Gathering is playing a 10pm show at a college, if I can get out of here early enough I can drive up to Philly, hit REI and go to faire/concert.
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In other news - Fuck you Fred Wilpon! As the owner of a team you have the final say on the decisions your team makes, don't act like the Mets are a punishment that has been tossed upon you and don't sit in an interview talking about how one of the best players to ever wear your team's uniform is a bum. Up until yesterday I was on his side in the Madoff scandal, but not anymore. Don't get me wrong, Wilpon cares about baseball, but his alliance is clearly towards the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maybe the new owners will remove all the Dodgers shit from our stadium and replace it with Mets stuff. Earlier in the year Bud Selig had MLB seize control of the Dodgers who were having problems paying their payroll, they are not nearly as in debt as the Mets who have taken out millions of dollars worth of loans from MLB and still can't pay payroll. ESPN had a great article on this today and went on to say how the only reason Wilpon has not been removed by MLB was because he is friends with Bud Selig.. I say they both need to be out of baseball.
I know I have not blogged in a long time and I'm not going to do the recap thing because it would just be too darn long..
The problem with blogging your life is when it gets too complicated to sit down and write about it.. That and I guess some stuff does not need to be in a public forum, at least not while it's happening..
Anyway, I'm down in Duluth GA this week teaching and it's smeggin' cold! When I found I had a class in Duluth in December I figured it would at least give me a break from the cold, boy was I wrong! It was 20 with a wind chill of -5 when I landed (those numbers are Fahrenheit unfortunately.. Last night it fell to 10 with wind chill of -11!
My students told me about this placed called Taco Mac which is a 99 type restaurant with 100+ beers on tap and 200+ beers in bottle! They have a frequent drinker program called Taco Mac Brewniversity, you get credits for each different beer you drink and when you get a certain number of credits you get benefits like 13 gives you a shirt, 125 gives you a 20oz for the price of a 16oz and so on.. The food was good, I had buffalo chicken tacos and the beer was awesome! Beers had last night: Unibroue La Terrible, Left Hand Nitro Sawtooth, Red Brick Laughing Skull and Warsteiner Dunkel. They have a bunch of locations, was talking to a random guy at the bar and he was telling me one of them is designed like an old speak easy, apparently you have to knock on the door and show your Brewniversity card to get in.. Going to that one tonight.. Not that it should surprise anyone but within five minutes of being there I had made a new friend who lives in the area now but is from NY and a Mets fan! I am meeting him tonight at the speak easy...
Laire was good this weekend, I played "Brother Hawk" because Daimone is still a Drowned One and finally started to learn Warlock skills. Still no word on my Druid quest but at least I have one master class started. I left Saturday night so I could be home for Sunday since I had to get laundry done and what not to get my flight on Sunday.
Speaking of my flight on Sunday. I got to the airport and found my flight was delayed from 6:07 till 7:00 then 7:30 then cancelled! I was in a bit of a panic and found out that AETravel's website does NOT work on the Droid OS! I had Becca log in and start looking for alternate flights but luckily it was not needed since the 3:30 flight was getting ready to leave and they had extra seats which they put all Elite status people from the 6:07 flight in. Even my luggage made it on the flight which shocked me because they told me it probably wouldn't till the morning..
Other news since last blog..
I got my renewal notice for the Mets season tickets and I mailed it back asking to move to section 424 again. In past years I have heard back in late January if not early February and was shocked when they called me a few days after I mailed the letter in to move me. They could not get me 3 seats in 424 but they did move me to section 426 which is a significant move from last year. That and the price went down about $40 per seat so it's all good all around... :)
Jessie's mom is having financial problems, no surprise here, so we are trying to sell her stuff out of the Kingston house and will eventually be trying to sell the house as well. The sale is this weekend so most of our free time has been spent driving back and forth and trying to get things ready to be sold. Thanks to Shane for helping us out during the week when we couldn't be there. If you want to come shopping come on down, she has a lot of good stuff and we are selling it all pretty cheap.
I hate playing catch up but I apparently suck at this blogging thing lately. I would really like to get back into my daily blog mode but alas it keeps not happening.. It's not even like I don't have anything to say I just can't seem to find the time to say it. When it gets a few weeks out then it feels like I either need to write a smeggin' novel or not blog at all.
As you know (if you read the last blog) I had recently gotten my Droid X. After having it for over a month now I have to say I still love it. I do however wish the stupid 2.2 upgrade would be pushed to it already. I "check for updates" on the phone every day and still nothing.. The version of Android OS I have is buggy and it's annoying when little things hang or when you can't access all your contacts. The biggest bug I've had is the Social Networking app which does not work with any contact that is linked with a phone book contact.. This problem only happens if you try to hide anyone from the app so it's not a big deal, but still slightly annoying.
Oh, and speaking of issues with my phone... My stupid SD card died!? I lost all my pictures from the day I went to see Adams Family and the Mets game with my dad which included maybe the best picture I've had of him in a long time. I also lost all the pics and videos of my mom's "4th of july" bbq. Lesson here - copy pictures to your PC on a regular basis.
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Speaking of my mom's 4th of july bbq.. Because of everyone's crazy weekend schedules my mom moved her 4th bbq to Aug 21st, that's kind of like the 4th of july right? It was fun but it was also sad that Jessie and Lenny were missing. Lenny was out in Chicago and Jessie was taking care of Hoyle who had just had hernia surgery. Did have a blast hanging out with the kids and shooting off fireworks! And as always the food was very good as was the company.. :)
The week before the bbq I was in NYC again for work. I drove down on Sunday and went to the 8pm Mets game, after the game I went back to the hotel to find out they don't have a bar right now (construction) so I went to a local bar down on the corner. They had Abita on tap and the bartender was very cool, I ended up hanging out there till they closed.. I don't really remember what I did what day anymore but I ended up hanging out with Michelle and Jim one night, we met at a vegan place and then brought food back to his apartment. We just hung out on his balcony for a lots of hours chatting, listening to music and playing with phones.
While in NYC I went to see Expendables with a bunch of guys from Laire. It was very good, lots of unnecessary action and lots of good one liners. As Schwarzenegger was walking away in a huff Bruno asks Stallone what's wrong with that guy to which he responds oh, him, he just wants to be president! The bad guy telling a female captive that he does not believe in hitting women but that guy over there (Jesse Ventura) has no problems with it! Gotta love big stars making fun of each other on film.
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The day after my mom's bbq me and Jessie went to the beer and chili festival at Mohegan Sun. The stand out chili for me was Willi Brew Pub's chili, I had never had it because I am not one to normally get chili in a restaurant but I will make sure I get there more often. The best thing at the chili/beer fest was probably the ice cream! A company in Old Lyme called ironically enough Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe makes ice cream with beer, they had a few flavors to try and I was very impressed. Perhaps someone who lives or works near there should pick some up one day when they are in the area.. (hint hint)
Lush stopped making Tramp again!? When we first found Lush in Montreal I fell in love with Vagabond/Tramp, this is now the second time it's been discontinued.. Hopefully it won't be for very long this time.
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My dad had gotten tickets for us to sit in the Delta Club for a Mets game on the 28th. We decided to make a long day of it and got tickets to see Adams Family: The Musical on the same day.. The musical was good, the casting was great (except Pugsley), the story was all original and very well thought out and written, the dialog was classic Adams Family and they did a few awesome in-jokes throughout for the loyal Adams Family fans. The only thing that fell a bit flat was the music unfortunately. Some of the songs were very good but overall they were just eh. I think it would be more successful as a play and not as a musical. I do however recommend seeing it if you are an Adams Family fan. It is crazy expensive so maybe wait till it does a touring cast. It was very cool sitting in those seats for the Mets game, we had waiter service so you never had to leave the seat! Just wave your arm and a guy would come and take your order..
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This last weekend was a mix of great and REAL bad! Started out great, went to Laire on Friday and was pleasantly surprised at how painless check in was this weekend. We had a bunch of pre-regs so I thought it was going to be a painful night but in the end it was not bad. Went to bed after my work assignment because my back was killing me and I was tired. Played all day / night on Saturday and lots of fun playing Daimone. I have been playing Brother Hawk more lately so it was a nice change of pace, plus Rich, Harry, Bryan and Corina all showed up so we had almost the entire Order for the first time in a very long time. Sunday I played during the morning and then left to go to Vin's wedding. Vin's wedding was very fun, I had a blast dancing (thanks Dianne for pulling me up to Come on Eileen) and catching up with Mike, Steve, Vin, Randy and Matt.
After the wedding was the problem... I went back to Laire and was not in fighting form on Sunday night, very tired from the dancing.. But, after fighting for a while I got back into form and was fine by the end of the night. Monday the town got over run, I was in good form but we were getting pressed hard! The mages got so low on power that I was told there was not enough power to give out spell defenses, I should have taken this as a sign to stop fighting so hard. But, one of the Order was down and dying and after arguing and trying to convince the other Order members to assist me in saving him I did the only thing I could do. I grabbed too little support and ran out after him. A second or two into the rescue attempt my support had fled and I was forced to run back towards the line, on the way I got hit by a dark paladin's lucky shot and fell. Was brought back to lay next to my dying brethren and was turned into a Drowned One (think zombie but more powerful). Spent the rest of the event as Daimone the Drowned One attacking the town! I have a 1 in 20 chance of coming back.. If that fails it will be a sad sad end to an epic character. At least I died trying to save my men..
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This weekend is Future Imperfect, hopefully it will go better than Laire did last weekend.
Got home on Friday the 23rd just to run back out again to Boston.. Jessie had gotten tickets to see Marc Maron at a bar in Allston, she listens to his WTF podcast. I listened to it once or twice and have been eh about it but I figured it would be at the very least funny.. I called the club and they assured me that the 7pm start time was accurate so against Jessie's better judgement I met her on the way and we drove up without eating first. I just have to say Smeg off to that bar! The doors opened at 7 but nobody went on for a long time after.. I can't be too upset at the cock knockers because we did end up with front row seats which is really great because of the way Marc Maron makes eye contact with his crowd and really seems to connect with them..
The first guy (who runs the comedy show there every week) came up and was pretty funny, he did a bit about hybrid Halloween costumes and did a Marty McFly / Abe Lincoln mix which was very good, his Michael J Fox impression was perfect and Abe Lincoln stressing out about getting back in time to free the slaves was awesome. He did another bit which was almost awesome, I saw almost because he went a bit too far with it.. It was about how he found a leather jacket at a hand-me-down clothes store and what he could deduce from the previous owner by what was in the pockets.. Great joke during the inspection of pocket number one, went to far when he looked in pocket number two.
The second guy was a local guy, Sean Sullivan, and he was very good. He did a bunch of jokes about buying a house in a horrible area and about buying a new toilet for that house. His stand out bit was certainly about the toilet..
Finally came Marc Maron who was the best of the night.. The only thing I will say about him is that if you ever get the chance to see him grab it.. I think he has a comedy central presents and a few other recorded stand up bits, actually I know he does because we have one on our iTunes. If you like funny with a bunch of real thrown in check him out.. Seeing him live will make me go back and try the WTF podcasts again, just need to get off my arse and put them on my iPod.
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Saturday was Scott's wedding, me and Jessie drove down and checked in at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott before the wedding and then walked over the church. The church part was a church wedding, the music really stood out for me which is not surprising since music is a big deal to Scott. They actually had one of Scott's friends there via webcam so he could watch the wedding which was a really awesome idea.. The reception was a ton o' fun! It was nice to see everyone (including my brother) be silly and relax, it was so silly and relaxed that I even ended up on the dance floor for the end of the night. Lots of great pictures on my cousins facebook site, they had a silly photo booth which ended up being the biggest hit. You go in and click the button and it would take four pictures.. Great idea, will steal it... :D After the reception the place had a burlesque show so we stayed for the beginning of that, I was so tired and it was a very low energy show that we didn't stay long. It was more like half naked cirque de soleil then what I think of as burlesque. I want my burlesque to fun, goofy and high energy, I guess I can thank Pam for that..
Sunday we drove home and I got to spend a little bit of time with Lynz at Thompson Dam before the super work of cleaning my house on Monday..
Sweeps week... I was a bit stressed out about getting my disaster area of house set up for the bbq.. Luckily for me Kevin and Hoyle came over and helped me rip through the basement on Monday! We even cleaned the windows in the basement and garage! Vacuumed basement floor, walls and ceiling.. I don't remember which day I figured this out (might have been Monday), but the Furminator works wonders on getting cat hair off furniture! I spent a lot of hours working on each chair, couch and cushion so that our pet allergic friends could bare to be in the house for an extended period of time. I was going to bail on Tuesday dinner to clean but once again, thanks to Kev and Hoyle, I felt that I was able to go because the house was almost done. Wednesday I went to the Mets game and watched the Mets come back in the late innings just to lose in extras because our manager does not manage to win.. When you're home you can't reserve pitchers for innings yet to come, you need to play each inning in extras as if it were the last. Because of that he left one guy in too long and we ended up losing. That really sums up the entire season for the Mets.. We don't need to win today, as long as our players are healthy and rested tomorrow! How can your team lead the league in shutouts and era and be under .500!? Sigh... Maybe they will lose so many games between now and the end of the season they will have no choice but to fire him and bring back Bob Vay..
Thursday and Friday were spent prepping food and making sure all the last minute shopping was done. Oh, I forgot to mention, as if the normal load of getting the house ready was not enough.. We had a pipe burst in the basement! Luckily it was the outbound pipe so there was no water running into the basement unless you ran the sink and/or dishwasher. Almost $400 later we were able to do the dishes which had been piling up.
The bbq was great, thanks all for coming out! I even got to get out from behind the grill and play some games and hang out..
Sunday morning I got up and with Brad and Chris' help got the place cleaned up before heading out to Irvine...
--This weeks cleaning and being home was sponsored by teaching an online class!
That's right, that made no sense and no bearing on anything really.. Just felt like posting it..
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I have not blogged in a while because I really have not had the time to sit down and type stuff up, and when I have I've been dealing with other stuff and junk.. Speaking of which..
I just got my PC fully working again, apparently McAfee had installed an update of Site Advisor and it decided to block most programs that were trying to get out to the web including McAfee updater!? Anyway, after fighting with McAfee Tech Support and then finally fixing it myself (with a co-workers suggestions) I am back up and running, and apparently blogging.. :)
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Now the daunting task of running back through the last two weeks, jeez, it's really been that long.. If you're out there reading I'm sorry for the disappearing act.. Last time I blogged I was teaching in Milford on antibiotics for Lyme's Disease and getting ready for Laire. Stupid antibiotics made me so tired, especially when in the sun.. Laire + Sun Avoiding Antibiotics = Not a good idea.. I played Chatima to boot which means I got to wear a sleeveless shirt and LOTS of sun screen! I actually had a real enjoyable time playing him, got to laze about the camp and just sorta enjoy the weather. I am a bit disappointed I went to bed early on Saturday because I didn't get to see the awesome big battle but, sleep won out in the end so oh well..
.... - Week in DC
Left Laire on Sunday and drove to Mclean, Monday night I went to dinner at Zaytinya with Pam. I got into DC early so I walked over the National Mall and the Washington Monument before circling back to meet at the restaurant. It's a greek mezze restaurant, we got a few dishes and they were all very good but the best one was probably the lamb special dish. After dinner we wandered around the city for a bit and ran into a street corner big band, they were pretty good and surprisingly all dressed in shirts and ties carrying big brass instruments in the heat! Speaking of heat, for dessert we went to Pitango which is a gelato place that uses all grass fed milk.. After dessert we wandered around a bit more before I dropped her at the bus and headed back to Mclean. Tuesday I had dinner at Pam and Christian's house, they made fish tacos and cauliflower which was very good. It was the first time I had met Christian but it felt like I was reconnecting with an old friend instead of meeting someone new. Lots of fun was had just sitting around the kitchen table chatting and telling stories.
Wednesday I went to Gordon Biersch with Josh and Marvin from work.. I got them to use my frequent buyer card for all our bills so I should get some serious points for that.. Thursday I went into the city pretty early and went to the Smithsonian for a bit before heading over to the Folklife Festival, I was a bit disappointed in the festival because they were in "rain mode" which meant everything was either closed or mostly closed. The main concert was supposed to be at 6:30 but they cancelled that because it started thundering. I went to the American Museum which was a thrill a minute, they had such artifacts as Archie Bunker's chair..
Drove home on Friday and once again got stuck in MASSIVE traffic in CT! I'm getting real sick of 95 between Greenwich and New Haven, it used to only be bad around Stamford and New Haven now it seems to be bad the entire way!
.... - Two Weeks Home!?
Saturday I went to Kaitlyn's birthday party, the food was awesome! Her dad made chicken wings which were a-maz-ing... I unfortunately didn't hang out there too long because I was still on the antibiotics and was already getting tired so I didn't want to press the tiredness while attempting to drive home.
Sunday I went to the Mets/Twinkies game with Kevin and Hoyle. It was a good game and the weather was great, the stadium now has Poutine at the fries place.. Oh wait, it's not poutine, it's Disco Fries.. What a stupid name, they would probably do better just calling it Poutine. If you don't know, Poutine is fries with cheese curd, cheese and brown gravy.. I had it for the first (and many) time(s) in Montreal so it was nice to have it again.. But, um.. Should have realized they would American size it! For $10 it was enough food for me and Lynz to be full on.. I ate about half of them and then had a few bites of a pulled pork sammich from Blue Smoke. We sat in our seats till about 3:30 when we moved to section 424 which is where I want my seats to eventually be. They were already in the shade and the view is so much better there. Not that my seats stink but those are better..
Had a nice (but very quick) week at home, Lynz and Anja came over on Monday and we finished up watching Life. Tuesday was dinner. Wednesday I went with Lynz to dinner at Asian Bistro for our do-over anniversary (remember the beginning of this f'n Lyme's Disease started on our actual anniversary).. Thursday.. Thursday.. Something just occurred to me... Feel a tangent, must control it... nooooooo
It's amazing how you communicate with each person in a different way, I would say I talk to Jessie and Lynz at least once every day.. Any re-cap or important conversations however are either done on the phone (Lynz) or in person (Jessie), if I look back in my IM logs for Friday I don't see anything about Thursday.. Then I realized that used to be my fail safe because I would always IM Holly with the re-cap of the day/weekend before.. It's just odd to me that in the entire time I was with Holly I don't think we had one conversation over 10 minutes via the phone but yet we talked almost every day..
Anyway, back to Thursday.. I figured it out (I think).. I remember watching the last episode of Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps, I think that was Thursday.. Then again that could have been over the weekend. I know we watched some Chopped and ICA as well..
Friday night was the Putnam Fireworks, Hoyle came over for that and before hand we went to Bellas for Big Al's BBQ. We got to the fireworks right before they started and somehow still managed to get the best possible spot! We were literary right in front of the shoot off point.
... I'm going to end this blog now because I want to go home.. Will blog more later.. In the meantime, enjoy..
Just finished the final season of Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps the other night. My dad got the DVDs from the UK and me and Jessie have been watching them over the last few months, the show literally jumped the shark in the beginning of season 7 when one of the main characters won a trip to America and died in a shark attack after jumping it.. That season was pretty painful to get through but it redeemed itself in season 8 for a very good finale. One really odd thing is that the final season DVD does not have the final two episodes which apparently aired as a special after the season DVD came out!? Thanks to TV Torrents we now have those two episodes but have yet to watch them.
Onto other shows.. Comedy Central just got the rights to air the old It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which I caught while in Philadelphia last week (ironically), it reminded me how funny that show appears to be so we downloaded season 1 on TV Torrents. I also stumbled upon Junk Yard Wars on Discovery, it's a game show where teams have to build odd devices out of stuff in a junk yard. I only watched one episode so far in which they had to build a off road golf car to hit a soccer ball without human intervention, gotta love building stuff from junk!
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This week has been very tiring, this Lyme's Disease is kicking my ass on a daily basis but it will be over soon.. Wednesday night I went to Tony Luke's to get a Philly Cheese Steak, Tony Luke bought the building across the street from his original cheese steak stand and turned it into a sit down restaurant. It was raining pretty hard (not always sunny in Philadelphia) so we (me and Josh) went inside instead of to the stand. Got an original wiz cheese steak with a side of alfredo pasta and was NOT disappointed, I'd had a Tony Luke's cheese steak at Citizen's Bank Park the other year but it was certainly much better at the restaurant.
Thursday I went out to Matt's house which is about 60 miles from Philadelphia, unfortunately about 40 of those miles is on a two lane road that goes nothing but straight right across NJ, it's a VERY pretty road but the traffic going to the ocean was out of control. My GPS said it would take an hour but it ended up being more like 2 hours 30 mins.. The ride was worth it though. We went to a little crab shack and I got an egg battered tilapia with crab meat on it. When I say crab meat I don't mean the normal bread crumbed crab meat, it was big chunks of naked crab meat! The ride back was great till I hit Philly, the last 20 miles took me over an hour!
Friday was driving home day and I of course I got stuck in major traffic in NYC and CT, had a late dinner and a very quick weekend. Went to Mom's house on Saturday for dinner and to meet her new dog Storm. We made portabella mushrooms on the grill and asparagus with lots of bacon on them. Sunday I went up to Nurit's house for her birthday and played DDR and Dominion, I ended up calling it an early night because I was tired but I had a good time.
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Long drives are always made better with good books, I am currently listening to Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt, it grabbed me right from the beginning and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Time Travel books. Before that I listened to Castle in the Air by Dianna Wynne Jones, it is the 3rd book in the Howl's Moving Castle world. Her books are very fun and good for all ages. You know, I just said it was the 3rd book but apparently I (and audible.com) are wrong, it is actually the 2nd book in terms of publish order but the 3rd in terms of reading order.. I guess that counts of 3rd right? Anyway, I think I'm going to grab some of her other books in the months to come.
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Last thing I want to mention, Vote Wright! David Wright is in 2nd place for 3B in the all-star game voting. Got to MLB.com and vote, you can vote 25 times per email address. If you have 2 email address you should vote 50 times!
I've decided the last few days have been almost Groundhog Day-ish.. Get up, grab some Dunkin Donuts on the way to work, teach, find a sports bar with the Mets game on, eat some dinner, watch the game and go to bed...
Tuesday night I went to the Hub which is right by work, they have a free buffet from 5pm-7pm provided you buy at least one beer and their beer is $2 for a draft from 5pm-7pm! How about a $6 dinner? The Mets/Cubs game was on WGN so I was able to watch it there and hang out with some cool people in the process.
Wednesday night I went to the Hub to find out they don't get the MLB Extra Innings so I could not watch the game there, it was CSN or SNY or MLB Extra Innings. Still ate there, because of above mentioned buffet with beer. Tuesday night it was pork tenderloin with a corn salsa, Wednesday night it was fettuccine with mushrooms in a brown gravy. Both nights also had Ceaser Salad and both nights were very tasty. Left there in search of Mets game, went to Twin Peaks which is a sluttier version of Hooters, they didn't have the game either. From there I went to Champs which did have the game and hung out with a few beers and watched the Mets get smoked.
Tonight? Going to Stadium Cafe which is right by the hotel and according to their website gets the MLB Extra Innings and has a free dinner buffet from 5pm-7pm with the purchase of a beer!
Class went well and ended real early because the students didn't need some of the information in the class so I breezed through it.
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Other news... I changed over the Bella's site to a new design, check it out if you haven't already. www.bellasbistromarket.com.. I also moved it to a new server because my old one didn't support PHP and my cousin was giving me shit about writing everything in generic HTML. It is much easier to do broad changes in PHP so it will be much better this way when I need to make changes.
Heading home tomorrow for two nights! Friday I have "relax at home" on the schedule, Saturday I have the Heavy Metal Festival in Worcester and then Lynz' Cheese Fire. Sunday I leave for McLean VA..
I told my co-worker how I was flying home from Seattle and going to a concert Saturday night in Maine and then leaving Sunday for Dallas, fly home from Dallas and go to a concert again on Saturday before leaving on Sunday for Mclean. His response was "man, you're really burning that candle at both ends", both ends you say? I think I found a few spots in the middle that burn too.. :)
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Last day in Seattle
I got out of class and headed back into Seattle to go back to the Science Fiction Museum, I'm glad I did.. In my hurry to look around the first time I missed the Red Dwarf model, they had one of the original Red Dwarf models used in the show, unfortunately they keep all the displays dark so I was not able to get a good picture. One of the big interactive screens I walked by the first time was a space dock that had bunches of ships dock and then fly away again, under the big screen they had little screens which you could interact with each ship that shows up on the big one. They listed the speed, maneuverability, fire power, distance, size and crew capacity for each ship as well a little blurb about who made the ship and why. It was really neat to look at and compare the different ships from the different sci-fi stories.
Walked around downtown a bit more before spending way too much time in the airport..
Hung around the airport and met a girl who was flying home from Hawaii, she grew up in Florida and moved to Hawaii because her husband got stationed there with the Army. She was telling me about how great the health care is there.. Is anyone surprised? You mean government provided heath care for all is a good thing?! Who knew... Oh wait, I (and probably all of you reading this) did...
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Landed later than I thought but I did get a bit of sleep on the plane, on the flight from Atlanta to Hartford I had an empty row so I was able to lay down. Me and Jessie hung out at the house for a bit while I did laundry and then we headed up to Maine. We got to the concert venue a bit before 6 and got a chance to walk around before the show, the highlight was a used toy/comic store which had tons of awesome stuff from the past. We ate at a local pub and got to the concert just in time to get front row seats. The concert was awesome! Jessie was concerned because when she saw it in Cambridge they had guest singers for each part and here they only had Anais singing. I have heard the CD before but never really realized how much she looks and sounds like Alyssa Jones from Chasing Amy, it was so close I actually looked up on IMDB to see if they were the same person or at least related. They are not..
When we first got to the venue there was a guy holding the door open for the musicians to bring in instruments. I asked him what time the doors opened and he went and found out, while he was gone Jessie informed me that he was the bass player... doh...
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Got up early and came down to Dallas via Cincinnati.. Went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and watched the Mets lose on ESPN.
Monday lunch was great, work provided because we have customers in the class and they brought in Chicken Marsala with a tray of grilled veggies and roasted potatoes. It was so good I went back for seconds. Speaking of good, dinner was great too.. I went to Magic Time Machine which is a theme restaurant over by the hotel. All the waiters are dressed as different characters, my waiter was Jack Sparrow and he did a great job of the part. They also had Dr Evil, Mr Incredible, Cinderella, the Mad Hatter and others. One of the funniest things was the bathroom calls, if you made the mistake of being seen going to the bathroom they would yell things at you.. One example was Cinderella asking a guy "Are you going to the potty?! Try not to pee on the floor again!", and don't make the mistake of asking anyone where the bathroom is because then they walk you all around the restaurant announcing that "this guy has to pee". Dr Evil had a guy following him as he asked each table if he could borrow their cups because this guy had to pee! He walked the guy around the restaurant like three times before he finally showed him to the bathrooms.. The food was just as good as the entertainment, I had a blackened stuffed prime rib which was two 5 oz prime ribs with crab meat and scallops between them, take that and put on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and some asparagus. So good! I was going to just get a Rib Eye but Jack Sparrow recommended the stuffed prime rib, I just have to say thank you Capt Sparrow..
Got back to the hotel and watched the Mets game, which was once again on ESPN. After the game I went down to the hot tub to find they closed it early?!
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I slept good, but I must have slept odd because my back is killing me today, hopefully I can get to the hot tub before they close it today. I'm feeling something healthy for dinner, maybe sushi? Lunch today was mexican and just ok..
Firstly, I take no credit for rhyming automobiles with Bonemeals, the Internets had a list of words that rhymed with Automobile and Bonemeal was in there and it does make sense in the narrative..
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Rains:
What more do I really have to say but that single word "rain" to make those in the New England area shudder. We have gotten hit with so much rain up here that we set new March rainfall records for MA, CT and RI. With massive rain comes massive flooding. Tuesday I was hanging and work minding my own business when people start texting and emailing me telling me of their massive flooding problems, now I had already ran into lots of road flooding on the way to work (Rte 193 by the Thompson Speed Way) so I was pretty concerned with the status of our house. Got permission to leave early and my concerns were realized when I got home to find about 3 inches of water in the basement and the river out back up to the driveway.
Went to get a wetvac and found everyone out so I borrowed my friend Mikes. The poor little thing really didn't have a chance with it's little 4 gallon tub. It was quite literally pump for 10-15 seconds and take the thing apart to dump it. While I was working on that Mike was calling around and found us a pump at the Auburn Home Depot. We drove up there and got the last one off the shelf, Home Depot in Auburn has 4 self checkout stations 3 of the 4 had people buying the same item.
After Home Depot we went to Tuesday dinner for a little sanity and some amazing food, Badger and Marie were both at the top of their game. Hung out for a little while and headed back to the basement.
We used our existing garden hose and had little success, the hose was too long and too thin to really get effective pumping. Decided to stay home the next day and go back to work, before starting I went and got a real size hose which made the process much more effective. I had it down to puddles by the time I went to lunch, I was gone for about 30-40 minutes and when I came back it was back up to about 1.5 inches! Pumped some more and with Amber's help I moved some stuff around to vacuum up the dirt, the pump does NOT like all the dust and dirt that was on the floor so getting that up made the pumping much easier.
Jessie came home early and we went out to Providence to see TSO with Kevin and Erin. It was the first time I was at Kevin's apartment and I have to say it's a pretty nice looking place. The concert was great, I personally loved the change of pace of having a new (non-christmas) story. The story was Beethoven's Last Night in which the devil tries to trick him into handing over his music for his soul, he can't figure out how the devil owns his soul in the first place and so Fate brings him back over his life choices. In the end he finds out that the devil lied to him and does not actually own his soul. What I didn't love about the show was missing some of our normal "east coast" TSO members but the good out weighed the bad and the show was very worth it.
I got up way too early the next day to head up to Anime Boston, when I got up I noticed the basement had water almost back up to the original amount. I had no choice but to leave it to Jessie. She has now pumped a few more times and last I heard the water was still coming in but it did at least slow down.
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Sprains:
Major League Baseball opens tonight with the Red Sox playing the Yankees in Boston at 8pm. Luckily I will be leaving the city via train so I won't have to deal with that traffic. The Mets open tomorrow in NY. Another year, another hope right? Or is that another year, another injury? The Mets were crippled with injuries last year and that's the thing that really can't happen two years in a row right? Apparently it can, or so it seems early on.. Carlos Beltran is recovering from knee surgery and will hopefully be back around May, Jose Reyes has just started his spring training and they have no time table for his return, and now Daniel Murphy sprained his knee and is expected to miss 2-6 weeks! That makes 3 of our starting 8 players already on the DL. The annoying thing to me is that we don't even have our best available players on the field to start the season, apparently Gary Matthews Jr got the CF job over Fernando Martinez, who is starting the season in the minors.
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Bonemeals:
Ok, so that one's a stretch, not only is it a bad rhyme for automobiles but it's kinda misleading too. I went with that word for this title because UMass Memorial Laboratories is signing up people for Bone Marrow donation at Anime Boston and their booth is located right next to me.
I had lots of fun at Anime Boston this weekend but it was also lots of work. I got there way too early on Thursday morning after fighting with traffic and the T. I got checked in and met Christian and Mara in the empty dealer room. We watched them put it together and around noon we unloaded the Anime Boston truck and started setup. The vendors started rolling in at 2 and we worked till about 11pm setting stuff up and making sure the vendors had everything they needed.
Friday morning I got down to the dealer room around 8:30 and once again made sure the vendors had everything they needed before opening to the public at noon. Being in the front of the vendor room made for lots of great scenery, unfortunately most of the really sexy outfits were being worn by people far to young to really enjoy them. Nothing to major happened Friday during the day, one vendor was caught selling bootleg bags and I found out that Alex and Alyson were there selling chain mail jewelry. I got Dominion Intrigue for cheap and a really amazing steampunk leather book cover for me to use as Laal in Future Imperfect. Speaking of Laal, I was called Laal by no fewer than four people over the course of the weekend. I guess I have not played FI long enough for people to know my real name. Also, while on the topic of FI, it's nice to know the president of the con.. I got permission for FI flyers to be randomly left around the con and some of the players did exactly that, hopefully we can get some new players out of it.
During the day I went to a Steampunk/Cyberpunk panel expecting to see some cool outfits and stuff to get ideas for FI, instead it was just a rant about how different movies showcase and/or influence the genre. After we closed Friday night I went and got some food and then went to the Cos-Play dating game which was really cheesy, it was an 18+ show where everyone played their character in a dating game. It might have been better if I had known the characters better but I've been so out of the Anime scene that I probably only knew like 15% of the characters. I went to the rave after but only stayed there for a few minutes before checking out the gaming room which was pretty dead. After that I went to the bar across the street and ended up hanging out with some of the vendors. The bar across the street, Bukowski's Tavern, had a lot of really good beers including Maudite on tap! I had a really good beer from Troegs called Hopback Amber, we only recently found that brewery and they are really good.
Back to the dealer floor Saturday morning at 8am. The dealer room opened at 10am and we spent MOST of the day handing out tickets for the Masquerade that started at 6pm. The Masquerade was more or less a cosplay talent show, I went and checked it out after we closed the dealer room at 7 and only stayed for 1 skit which was a dance off between characters I didn't know. Saturday saw some really amazing costumes just like Friday but this time there were a lot more adults.. :)
I took a bunch of pictures and will post them to Flickr later today. One kid "dressed" as a guy from Avatar, I say dressed in quotes because what he did was paint his entire body with latex paint. When I say his entire body I mean it, he had a loin cloth on which apparently shifted while he was in the food court to show his blue privates. He got removed from the con. If you think that was ballsy (pun intended) there was a lady dressed as Leia from Return of the Jedi. Her clothes were made of chain mail and she was wearing nothing underneath but a loin cloth, even at a quick glance you could see her nipples sticking out between the links.
Back to the dealer room, during the day on Saturday a vendor came up with a kid to inform us that the kid had just bought a bootleg toy, we investigated the booth he got it at and found that everything in the booth was a bootleg. I learned a lot from Christian on how to spot bootlegs and we ended up kicking the vendor out which meant we had to hang in the room after it closed to make sure he left peacefully which he did.
After he left I went up to the Artist Alley and spent a bunch of time looking at wonderful artwork. I got an amazing cat magnet, I will put up a link to her site later because I left her card at home.
After visiting the Masquerade and the Artist Gallery I ended up going to an Irish pub for dinner and then to the Formal Dance where I hung out with Christian and Mara's friend Kate. It was awesome to see how much effort people went into to make formal gowns for their cosplay characters. After that I went back to the game room and was uninspired to hang out there because it was really dead again. Went to the rave again for a few minutes and then went to a panel on how to make fan dubbed anime, that was a pretty interesting show actually. The security guard there had nails that made Holly's nails look small..
Found out that Saturday night was more exciting for the security team which ended up having to deal with an overly drunk under age girl and her friends.
Sunday, 8am, dealer room... Spent almost all of Sunday taking pre-regs for the 2011 Anime Boston con which will be April 22-24. After the room closed we took apart everything and I left around 5pm.
You know, when I wrote this I could have just used Trains as one of my points... When I left I found out that the Hynes Convention Center T Station was having construction and the outbound platform was closed, "For outbound go inbound one station"... Went inbound and got off at Copley to find that due to flooding you couldn't go from the inbound platform to the outbound platform... "For outbound go inbound one station".. Went in again and finally got on an outbound train, with all the Red Sox game traffic which means I had to stand with my bags in a cramped train for a few stops before they all got off for the game.
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Got home to find more water fun.. The fridge has started leaking water from the freezer into the fridge and ruining food. Searched the Internets and found it to most likely be a problem with something frozen inside the fridge so we took everything out and loaded up the downstairs fridge and freezer before heading to bed...
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The other week I went to Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect, it was a great weekend.. One thing that they do that I think is great is that they ask for a Post Event Letter so that the guys who run the game can see what everyone is up to. I think this is a great idea for LARPs to do but I wouldn't want to be the guy responsible for reading them all.. Anyway, here is my weekend...
Friday night could possibly be one of the unluckiest nights ever.. It was certainly the first time I've ever had to res twice in one night. Did a few rounds with Rooster so he could show me the boundaries of our jurisdiction, got into a few fights along the way with Brigands. We found some resources on them and ended up giving a Petroleum and noble metal to Grinner so he could make his Medical unit. I was standing with Rooster while he was talking to someone else and I noticed three people sitting by the water. I went to investigate and as soon as I got close enough I got three quick bullets to the chest from our little Num friends. They picked me up and walked me out past low town to meet up with their scientist. One hysterical DNA extraction later (see favorite cast) my Karma kicked in, I noticed four things, a - my neck was killing me, b - I saw a white lab coat to my right, c - I saw a black trench coat to the left and, d - I saw a clear path ahead. Instinct kicked in and I ran for it. I almost got a full message to Rooster on the radio before a bunch of nums who were waiting around the corner unloaded into my chest again. Not taking chances this time they granted me a quick death and I took the long slow walk to the res bed..
After getting back up I had Grinner check out my neck, he told me that they got my DNA and that he knew how to destroy it if we could get the bottle back. I radioed Rooster and found him in a firefight in low town so I ran to assist with Dink and a few others. After the fight we headed back to where I remember waking up, I saw the white coat and a bunch of other hostiles. We didn't engage, instead we went back to town for re-enforcements. We got re-enforcements including Pulse and headed back up to the area. By the time we got back they were all gone but I did find my shot gun.
We had a few skirmishes with some nums but none of them had any vials. On the way back into town we found some people on the path, we were attacked by the brigands when Rooster identified himself as Marshall. Dropped them and went back to the commissary.
Spoke with Pulse about his still while setting up our camp. We didn't get a chance to put straps on his armor (before the event) so we quickly attached it to him using duct tape. After setting up camp and getting him armored we started wheeling and dealing our resources for the ones he needed. Got most of what we thought we needed and headed to the auto-forge to see he had in storage. We were ambushed in the science center by another group of nums and they dragged everyone out but me. I was bandaged up and we went up to high town to get Pulse and the others back. We stormed a cabin and defeated the nums, I was bandaging Pulse when the nums got back up and we dispatched them a second time. After the interruption I went back to bandaging him up, Frost asked me if it would take a while and I said yes. Just Pulse was coming awake I got shot in the arm, I turned just in time to see the next bullet hit my chest and Frost nowhere to be found. Pulse was shot after trying to radio for help and we both laid there and bled out. We got out of the res bed minutes before the game was called for the night.
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Saturday morning started with me and Pulse cooking breakfast for everyone, Pulse cut up the boar and I cooked it along with potatoes, beans and french toast. Breakfast ended about 10 and we headed up to the commissary for the gathering so that Rooster and Pulse could officially announce their candidacy. After the meeting we went back to the auto-forge to drop of more resources towards his still and found we only needed one more patroleaum.
Came back to the commissary to find the science meeting already in progress so I quietly joined. Spoke with Mabin after about Amps and she said if I provided her the resources she would make me some amps so we headed to the science center.
On the way we ran into a new thaw who was cowering from everyone, she seemed to have something mentally wrong with her (she kept smelling a hospital smell) so Mabin tried to cure psych procedures which only made her more upset. I got her to calm down and walk with me to the rec center. I tried to see if the smell was physical so we had her remove her hat, clothes etc to see if something had the smell on it. We had her sit by the lake to see if the nice smell would help overpower it. After not having any success there I called Rooster over for his opinion and he had little to add. Convinced her to come to the commissary so she could get something to eat and drink to see if that would help. Kept her away of people who obviously looked like doctors or scientists to try and keep her calm so she could remember some of her past. She could not remember as long as the smell was there so I tried to distract her smell with alcohol which apparently was a bit strong because it knocked her down (1 damage from the drink). Got her bandaged and back up, when she came to she saw the bandage and ripped it off causing her to fall back down. Carried her over to Grinner's healing machine and healed her using that.
She was a bit calmer now that she was drunk and the smell seemed to only come back when I asked her anything about her past so I tried to just sit with her for a bit to see if we could help, as the drink started to wear off the smell came back strong so we got her some chocolate which seemed to help for a very short time. I called Grinner over to get his opinion and he suggested his laughing gas, she would not do it unless I did first so we both sat there laughing for the next 5 minutes. After the gas wore off she seemed to be pretty calm but when I asked her about her past the smell came back but this time it didn't seem as strong, she stayed calm but just said she could smell it. Thinking the only thing that will return her past is time I asked her if she wanted to stay with me and Pulse. She agreed, I had someone lend her some new clothes so she didn't have to keep wearing her hospital gown and walked her down to our camp. On the way to the camp we agreed that I would call her Kim until such time as she remembered her past.
Afterwards I came back to the commissary and put in my vote for the election and started walking with Mabin once again to the science center and we met up with the two scientists who were looking for research assistants, I declined but ended up getting the last patroleaum that Pulse needed from them. Mabin went to talk to them and I went to find Pulse. I spoke with Rooster and he told me of Dink's death, then I grabbed Pulse and we went to the science center to build his still. He transfered the resources to the device account but ended up not having the paper he needed to bring the still into game.
Pulse, Carptenter and myself went off site to dinner..
After dinner I went over to the movie, I enjoyed it but didn't stay long as the freeborn were going to meet at our camp. We got the fire going and were updated with specifics for the nights raids against the exile complex and specifics about the exodus list. We broke into groups and I was assigned to Rooster's group which didn't end up going, instead I spent most of the night monitoring the radio, patrolling the area around the commissary and keeping people informed when to expect the refugees so they wouldn't be surprised by strange people walking down the path. During this time I finally got resources to Mabin and she made me some amps, I also got Pulse's back plate attached to his armor so he would be better protected if we were needed in battle. I was playing cards with Pulse, Carpenter and Vos when they called for Rooster because George was coming. I left the card game and went with him to meet George.
A little while later we got the radio call that Buckles had been captured and that Grinner needed help going after him. Frost told us to go so I grabbed Pulse, Vos, Carpenter and Orion and headed up to Aleph Complex. We went up the back way and apparently Grinner came down the other way so when we got there we found nobody waiting. I was getting spotty reception on the radio but after moving about up there I got enough signal to get in touch with Rooster who told us to come back to the commissary, as soon as we got back we found Grinner getting ready to leave so we walked back up with him. We went inside the complex and through the long tunnel to the room with Buckles and lots of hostiles. I was doing good shooting people over Pulse in the tunnel until Pulse finally ran in and I moved up. I only got one more shot in after I moved up before getting shot in the head. Grinner got me up and we finished off the hostiles. Back through the tunnels to the elevator to find we were above max capacity for it. Grinner said he would stay behind and I jumped out as the doors were closing to stay with him. While we waited one of the bodies came in trying to find it's res bed. The elevator came back and we jumped in, the body was trying to get in but Grinner got the door closed just in time to hear it banging itself against the doors. We got back to town and spent the rest of the night around the firepit. People were hungry for late night snacks so we made beans over the fire and put them into shot glasses to invent a "shot of beans".
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Sunday morning was lots more cooking but this time it was far less crowded so I even had a chance to eat before it was all gone. We came up with the "freeborn sandwich" which was a piece of french toast with beans and ham folded up, it was messy and very good. After breakfast we went up to the commissary and heard the happy results of the election. When they started calling names for the exodus I went to the bathroom, when I came out Pulse looked at me with an odd look and pointed across the room where I saw Vos Walker standing in the line. Before I could react Grinner came up and asked what was going on with him and then called for him to come to us. His name was on the list and he didn't know about the refugees taking the place of anyone not wanting to go. We sat him down and sent someone in his place. After everyone left I was talking to Vos about it and was going to hit him with a knockdown from my shotgun when he pushed the barrel at the last second and I ended up hitting Jacobi instead. I got hit with a knockdown punch from behind and went down, after I got up I went over to apoligize and took another knockdown punch from Shlea too.
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Now back to our regularly scheduled big ass-blog... I'm going to end this here because it's getting WAY to long.. Make sure you check out this diversion, it's a 10 part review of Phantom Menace..
/sigh... Jose Reyes was told he has to rest for 2-8 weeks while he takes medication for his thyroid.. That leaves Reyes and Beltran out for the season opener.. ugh... Who ever heard of a smegging baseball player having to sit because of a thyroid problem...
I finished Sea of Monsters this morning, it was very good and I'm looking forward to the 3rd book, but before I do that one I am doing Good Omens which was finally released on audio. So far it's good, I like how any tape left in a car for more than a fortnight becomes Queen's greatest hits.. :)
Speaking of music, Jessie just sent me a Folk Opera, the music is very good and it's coming to MA in April, I may have to go see it if I am free.. Check it out here..
Last night I went to Lov'n it Live which is a raw vegan restaurant in southern Atlanta, I went there the first time I was in the area and it was just as good if not better. I got a seaweed soup which was good and a nutloaf with broccoli & cheese which was amazing. The broccoli that is, the nutloaf was just ok. I asked for the recipe for the broccoli but they wouldn't give it to me. I took the train there instead of driving and it only took like 40 mins total to get there, the food took forever to get, I was getting upset as I sat waiting for them to serve me. It took almost an hour to get the soup and about 20 mins more to get the main course. They are just lucky they are that good.
After class today I went to Old Norcross and wandered around, it has the feel of Putnam with cute little nick nack stores and antique shops. They have a neat coffee house that offers beer and wine tasting as well as coffee. They also have a real expensive steak house and the british pub I went to the other night. I walked around for a bit and took some pictures of the really cool kids park. Not the one I was in the other night, this main street area has two really cool parks (one on each side). Hopefully the pictures will do it justice, I will post them either later tonight or tomorrow from work. After hanging out there for a bit I came back to the hotel and then to Barnacles for dinner. Brandon was there tonight! I hung out with him for a bit before he went home and I came back to the hotel.
Now I'm just listening to the songs from the Folk Opera while waiting to play my OOTP games against Lee. Meeting him online at 9.
I just got back from the worst hot tub ever... It was certainly HOT but it only had one working jet... I'm in Duluth Georgia again, you know last time I was here I was also healing from getting my tattoo done, this time it's all the way healed at least but I'm still hesitant about being submerged in water but that's ok since the main pool is closed for repairs and the hot tub sucks..
Last time I was here I spent most nights at Barnacles and met some really cool people. I went there last night and I was the only white person in the whole bar. I went by there again tonight after dinner and once again nobody I knew was there.. :(
A guy in my class found a bbq place he heard was good so I think I'm going to go there tomorrow, tonight I went to a British Pub that's about 9 miles from the hotel. I was told about it by a girl from OKCupid who I have not seen online since.. Speaking of OKCupid, work blocked that as of this afternoon, I guess it was just a matter of time.. Anyway, so this place ended up being pretty cool, they had Fat Tire on tap and sold fish in chips in a single or double portion, I got the single portion which was plenty of food. Left plenty of room for my Fat Tires.. :)
Another guy in my class was talking about how great the hotel next door was, I wish it were a Marriott because this place is pretty lame (hot tub & pool suck and TV/channels are weak) but it's all about the points..
It's been a long time since I blogged but I'm going to pretend that nothing of interest happened during that time because I was starting to feel overwhelmed with trying to recap the ever missing blogs.. One thing I will say.. I went to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief, it was bad like one of those made for TV fantasy movies, the sets however were great. Speaking of Percy Jackson, I read the first book recently and it was VERY good and I just started the 2nd (Sea of Monsters) and it's just as good so far. Whoah, this blog is truly a tangent in a tangent... Speaking of books, I just finished And Another Thing which is the 6th book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. It was written by Eoin Colfer with permission from the estate of Douglas Adams.. It was very good and really captured the feel of the old books. If you're a fan of the books I recommend it. And another thing regarding books (see that clever use of the previous title), they finally released Good Omens on audio! I have that on my iPod and it will be the next book I listen to right after Sea of Monsters.
I've decided I like blogs that are a stream of thought so.. I didn't get a chance to watch/listen to today's Mets game but John Maine started today, he left after facing only 8 batters and striking out 4 of them! Apparently he moved weird towards first base and they decided to pull him before he hurt himself again. Can't say I blame them.. Speaking of the Mets, Perez pitched the other day and got shelled, ugh! We are paying that smeghead 13mil for another 2 years.. I am however excited for the upcoming season, I think with the addition of Jason Bay our team will do much better than last year (especially if we can stay healthy)..
Right, so back to present day.. I was at the airport in Hartford waiting for my flight then none other than Don King comes and sits down across from me! He is looking old but he is an awesome guy, took a few peoples pictures with him and talked with him for a bit.. During that excitement I met a really cool girl who lives in Springfield, she works as an interpretor and was flying to Las Vegas to meet her boss. She had not flown in a VERY long time and I helped her get a seat assignment and I helped her get to her connecting flight in Atlanta, we are going to get together when we both get back. :D I also met a really cool guy from Middletown CT who travels almost 90% of the time for work. I ended up sitting next to him on the flight which made the flight go pretty quickly.
Umm.. So, back to tonight.. Yay, tangety (is that a word) blogs... I went to the British Pub as I mentioned, it is on a street that ends in a really cool park, I wandered around the park a bit before dinner and took some nice pictures which I will hopefully post tomorrow at work when I'm not on a really slow internet connection.
My car this week is a tiny little car called a Cevy Aveo.. I took some pics and will post them tomorrow as well. It's not a bad little car actually, the steering wheel is very thin but otherwise it's nice to drive.
Ok, I guess I'm done for tonight.. See ya all later..
Oh, one more thing.. I found out that there is a Marta station about 10 mins from work, the Marta runs every 8-10 minutes into Atlanta so one of these nights I will be heading into Atlanta to eat at that raw place (Loving it Live) without having to deal with traffic.. :)
---Diversion of the Day
Jessie found this band last night while staying up too late, hope you like it (I know I did)..
This may be a long blog because I actually have things to say I just haven't taken the time to write them down..
I am in Symmetrix Installation and Maintenance class this week.. Why you ask? I am branching my knowledge back up an old branch.. I will be adding Symm classes to my repertoire of classes I teach, should not take much ramp up time since I worked on that product for 5 years before becoming a SAN instructor.. Being in the class is pretty boring because it's amazing how little I forgot.. :)
So bored at work means time to blog..
My dad got a hold of the Sunday ticket plan games for 2010 so I spent this morning looking over games and which ones conflict with other plans. One thing I realized is that I set my Disney Vacation for the beginning of the playoffs, will that matter? Depends on how good the Mets do this year.. It would be bitter sweet if they made the playoffs and I was in Disney for it but I will take my chances.. :)
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I've read some very good books lately and wanted to mention one that really stood out above the rest.. Paul Levinson's Plot to Save Socrates.. I don't want to say too much because I do recommend you read it if you like time travel and especially if you have a keen like of Ancient Greece.. Here is a cut and paste of the Wiki article on it..
The Plot To Save Socrates deals primarily with the concept of time travel, and while the novel rarely discusses time travel directly, it poses several questions about its validity and possibility (or lack thereof). The story begins in Athens Greece in 2042 with the main character, Sierra Waters, thinking to herself, at which point the rest of the story begins as a flashback (both in her head and in the sense that the characters constantly flash in and out of historic eras). Sierra Waters, a graduate student, receives a copy of a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates is being offered an escape from his death sentence in ancient Athens by a person (named Andros) offering to take him into the future and leave a clone behind. The document appears to be genuine, and this takes Sierra onto a path that leads her to a time traveling adventure of her own. On her path she meets up with the great historic inventor Heron of Alexandria but soon realizes that Heron is a suspicious character himself. The story tangles itself a bit as more and more characters appear to be intertwined with each other and on occasion even the same person at different points in life. However, the novel ultimately untangles itself, somewhat satisfying the plot's plausibility although leaving unanswered any deeper metaphysical qualms the reader might have. The story also involves Plato, Alcibiades, publisher William Henry Appleton, as well as several fictional characters. There are scenes across time, placed in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Victorian New York City, and Roman London.
Another book that I would recommend is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. If you've seen Miyazaki's movie by the same name you will not be disappointed by this read nor by the movie after reading it. Obviously the movie has alot of things missing and some differences but Miyazaki did a great job of presenting the book in movie form.
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Back to the 20th.. The last time I wrote a blog I was getting ready to go meet Amy and Mitch for dinner. The drive down to their house really sucked, there was an accident a mile away from their exit so the 20 mile ride took me about 90 mins! I got there and we hung our for a bit before we went to Daks, a local non-chain restaurant, for dinner. Dinner was good but the place was crazy cold, Mitch found a space heater tucked behind one of the tables so we pulled it out and turned it on under our table which made it much better. After dinner we went to Baskin' Robbins near Daks and ended up leaving because they had an un-open container of chocolate peanut butter but would not open it!? The guy looked at me and said "we don't have that flavor tonight", I said "but it's right there", and he said "yeah, but it's not open"... wtf?! We drove down the road about 5 mins to another Baskin' Robbins and they had the correct ice cream so we got some.. :) It was so nice to be able to spend time with Amy and Mitch and I'm looking forward to my next trip to the DC area in April so we can hang out more. Hopefully next time she will be in better condition so we can enjoy more active activities, she had recently gotten into a bad car accident and could barely get in and out of the car because of pain..
Speaking of people I miss hanging out with.. Kaitlyn came over on the 24th and we went to the Willi Brew Pub with Lynz and Jessie. We had some good food and some good beer (as expected at the Brew Pub).. After dinner me, Kaitlyn and Jessie played some Guitar Hero.. Kaitlyn played drums and a great time was had by all..
Janine and I had planned to watch Wicked on DVD, we finally scheduled it for the 25th.. Idea, me and Jessie would go to Hoyle and Janine's house for dinner and afterwards watch Wicked.. Fail in the plan, I can't find my Wicked DVD.. Anyone have it? I know I lent it to someone but don't remember who.. Well, after spending way to much time looking for the stupid DVD me and Jessie headed over. After dinner we ended up watching Inglorious Bastards which I really liked. It was very long (153 mins) but it kept my interest throughout, Jessie was not as impressed. The only thing I would have liked was more on screen time of the Inglorious Bastards..
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Me and Jessie went to the Laire Awards ceremony this Saturday. They always have it at Dave and Busters in West Nyack NY, the last time we went the food was just "eh", this time the food was actually quite good. The Order won best group which gives us one free ward a month.
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The final episode of Dollhouse aired on Friday night. It did a good job of ending the series but I really wish it was longer, the episode seemed to be on the verge of fast forward and I think they could have done alot more with it. Hopefully the DVD set will have a longer version of the final episode. I remember reading somewhere that the final episode was going to be 2 hours but it was only 1 so who knows. Maybe my source was bad, maybe the cut an hour out for broadcast. I hope the 2nd one is true.
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When I started this blog I think I had more to say but now I don't remember what it was.. I should have made an outline before I started but oh well.. Perhaps I will remember more later and write about in another blog..
I just found out that there is a sequel being written for Plot to Save Socrates. It's called Unburning Alexandria, no listed release date but something to watch for.
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Dimension Jump XVI is being held in London on July 23rd-25th. When that schedule is being written I'm going to ask my boss if he can send me to London that week.. Dimension Jump is a Red Dwarf convention, the rumor is they are going to show episode 1 of series 10.
Last night Robyn came over, when she got there we decided to grab some food. Not know what was around I asked the guy at the front desk of the hotel, he recommended Shamshiry Chelo Kabob which is a Traditional Persian Cuisine restaurant a block away from the hotel. Having never tried Persian food we decided to give it a shot.
The food was excellent but the menu was all the entertainment we needed for the night, well almost.. Here are some actual menu item descriptions:
Salad Shirazi $ 2.99
There is an Old Persian saying that it takes four people to prepare a salad: A generous man to add the oil, a stingy man to add the vinegar, a wise man to give the right touch of salt and pepper, and a fool to mix it well. Diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, and seasoning provides a pleasant combination to prepare you for your dining experience.
Panir Sabzi $3.25
Panir or goat’s cheese is an extremely delicious cheese, which the Persians habitually eat. If you walk down the avenue in Tehran during lunch hour, you will find the mason, and cobbler, the shopkeeper – everybody – eating bread and cheese. Very often Persians eat Panir with raw vegetables and herbs (radishes, basil, scallions, tarragon, or fresh mint). It pleases the palate.
Torshi Bademjan $ 3.99
The Persian homemaker takes pride in the quality and variety of the pickles kept in the pantry. This appetizer of eggplant, parsley, garlic, mint, cilantro, vinegar, salt, spices, and black caraway in uniquely Persian and extremely palatable.
Shirin Polo $ 4.99
This is one of the most excitingly different, unusual, and demanding of the Persian rice dishes. But it is also one of the most rewarding. The sweet rice is seasoned with spices, perfumed with sugared orange peel, and made crunchy with pistachios and almonds. It tastes as if imaginative honeybees created it.
Baghali Polo $ 4.99
This fragrant and devastatingly delicious dish is made with dill, a most delicate herb. Persians have favored dill for many years and use it in many dishes. One of the more famous and extremely tasteful dishes is Baghali Polo, where dill is used in combination with rice and soft good tasting fava beans. It’s a treat you will want to share.
Chelo Kabob Kubideh $ 9.55
Kabob is the Persian word for meat or fowl cooked over a charcoal fire. There delicious strips of charcoal broiled ground meat are served with a snowy mound of rice topped with saffron. All the beef dishes achieve greatness when you add a raw egg yolk on the side, which you rapidly pour into the hot rice, continuing to toss it so that the egg coats all the grains as the heat cooks it. Stir in as much butter as you dare, and sprinkle in the brown powdered sumac that’s in a shaker on the table. It’s tart spiciness is irresistible.
Chicken Kabob $ 9.55
Chicken kabob is made with breast meat that has been marinated in a special recipe. Persians serve chicken for the same occasions that Americans serve turkey. If the Persian homemaker has a guest, she will almost always serve some form of chicken. This is special. The chicken, served with rice in a snowy mound, will give your meal a whole new meaning.
Persian Ice Cream $ 3.99
Persian saffron ice cream, tinted a golden pink will remind you of midsummer. It is fragrant with rose water and as richly chewy as the most eggy creamy ice cream aspires to be. You can order it alone, or with Paludeh.
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As promised here is your update blog.. Or a bit of one anyway..
Jan 6th - Lynz and Anja came over and I made chicken cutlets with gluten free bread crumbs. I added honey to the egg and it came out nice, next time I'm going to add some X-O Hot Bean Paste and see where that goes.. After dinner we watched all of the Simon's Cat videos on Youtube, if you have not seen those yet I recommend them.
Jan 10th - Went to Steve's house for a board game day, it's been a long time since I went down there so it was nice to do that for a change. We played Redneck Life which was an ok version of Life, the spin on it was that you started with $0 and everything you bought put you further in debt and you could gain and drop kids quite often. It was funny at times but overall it was not spectacular. What was (and is) spectacular is Dominion. Randy brought that and we played a few hands of it before the night was up.
Jan 11th - Made a buffalo, sausage, veggies and rice dish for dinner. I was going to put in corn and mushrooms, Jessie recommended Okra so I added that too. While cooking I realized the mushrooms were bad so I added a veggie mix instead. After dinner we played Dominion and listened to some music..
Jan 12th - Make it a Dominion week? I brought it over to Tuesday dinner and played a few hands after dinner.. What a great game.. :)
Jan 13th - Dad came over for dinner and to rescan all the DVDs for sale. I made my homemade teriyaki sauce and cooked it on a pork tenderloin. After dinner we watched a few episodes of "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" which is a show from the BBC. It's very funny and reminds me a lot of "Coupling".
Jan 14th - No really, make it a Dominion week! Lynz came over and I made a swordfish steak with the leftover teriyaki sauce. After dinner we played Dominion and listened to music..
Speaking of Dominion, I ordered the "online only" cards from eBay and got them on Friday.
The weekend was Laire and I have to say that I'm finally back to full Laire ability. I did some serious ass kicking, I was swinging so much on Saturday my arm felt like it was going to fall off. In all my years of playing I don't think I've ever felt so swarmed as I did on the Saturday mod. The waves of undead were staggering, the only thing I could see was Lascula (we were fighting so close we were touching for most of the battle) and walls and walls of undead. If not for the Double Power Fortitudes I'm sure we all would have dropped in the first encounter of the mod. As it was we didn't make it all the way through the mod but it was a success (sorta) as we survived. I stayed till the end of the event and was exhausted driving home. I woke up on Monday morning to stagger my way to the airport and the beginning of yesterday's blog..
btw - I love Blogspot's auto save feature! I accidentally clicked on a link to get you the diversion of the day and closed this window. I went back and the whole blog is still in tact!
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Meant to put this into the other day's blog.. The Mets called me on Sunday morning, unfortunately they insisted on calling my home number and not my cell phone even though my cell is listed as the primary number. Since they called home I didn't get it till I got back from Laire. I called them Monday morning before getting on the flight and got assigned seats. I don't know if I would have gotten better seats if I had talked to them on Sunday but I moved from 433 to 430. The eventual goal is to get into section 424 but I guess a little closer is still better. We are in Row 3 and have an aisle seat. I could have taken Row 1 but I would not have gotten an aisle in Row 1.
Kiss just released a new CD set this week. They released this as a Walmart exclusive which is the first thing that pisses me off but whatever. I went to Walmart on Tuesday morning to wait in line and get my copy like all the other Kiss fans, yes there were lines.. I cleverly avoided the line in electronics when i saw a few of the CDs sitting on a A-Frame and grabbed one along with the new Madonna DVD and walked to the front registers which had no lines. :)
This CD set has two CDs and one DVD. The first CD is a new CD called Sonic Boom, on first listen I loved the first song then it dropped off dramatically till the last few songs. On second listen I was more forgiving perhaps because I found myself liking most of the songs but my favorites are still the first and last. The CD booklet lists who wrote each song but not who sung them, obviously I can tell the Gene and Paul songs but there was one song sung by someone else, I assume it was Tommy Thayer because I've heard Eric Singer's voice before and it was not that bad.. :)
Speaking of bad voice, Eric did sing Black Diamond on the second CD but did it in his best (it was bad) Peter Criss impersonation.. If you hadn't guessed the second CD was a CD of recorded Kiss hits called Kiss Klassics. The did 15 tracks and for some reason felt the need to include Christine Sixteen in that set. For the most part these songs sounded almost identical to their original versions all the way down to the fade out and fade in at the end of I Love it Loud, they did sound better if only for modern day recording studios. A few of the songs were actually different and mostly in good ways, for example I Was Made for Loving You was done more in line with how they play it live and not in the original disco mold. Forever was a stinker, Paul's voice sounded strained and uninspired. All in all I think Do You Love Me was the best of the re-recordings.
But wait, there's more.. This set comes with a 6 song live DVD that was recorded on the last tour in Buenos Aires. Kiss fans are everywhere and one of my co-workers was talking about getting this CD so I let him borrow mine and then we decided to watch the DVD here on one of the projectors. Wow, was it bad.. I gotta think as a marketing decision this was a major screw up, nobody is going to watch that DVD and then think to themselves 'man I gotta go see these guys'. They were out of tune, out of sync and generally had no life on stage. I have to imagine that they could have found a better night to take the recordings from.
All in all, is the new CD set worth it? Yes.. There are enough good tracks on the first CD to make the $12 paid a value not to mention most of the songs on the 2nd CD were well done and sound fuller than the previous versions. The DVD, just throw it out..
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If you live anywhere near Hebron CT you need, need, need to get to the CT Ren Faire this year.. They did an amazing job on the fight sequences this year. The story this year is called 'For the Love of Lancelot' and there are four shows throughout the day, five if you include the show at the gates before the faire opens. By the way, if you can you really want to try and get there before the gates open because that show was really good and really sucks you in.
I mentioned the fight sequences were great this year and that's mostly in part to Taryn Bazinet and Colette Marie Crowley who play two French girls who fight as one, they were like watching intense synchronized swimming combat. The final fight had this holy crap amazing sequence that you really just have to see to believe. No, I'm not going to describe it because you need to go see it live!
I was a little disappointed by some of the cast changes and the fact that the sheriff was not around but all in all it was an amazing time.
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Sunday me and Jessie went to the final Mets game of the year with dad. He bought tickets in the Ceaser's Plaza Club which were right in front of the SNY broadcast booth. Believe it or not the seats were a bit thiner than the seats in the section we want to move to in the Promenade, they were actually thinner than some of the seats on the same level but further away from Home Plate.
When we got to the game they had closed off our normal parking area and let us park in the main lot (usually only for pre-paid parking). Because we were in the main lot we decided to walk over to the Shea Stadium base markers. It was neat standing on the pitchers mound marker and looking around at how small everything looks. Citi-Field was beyond the outfield wall at Shea but yet it looks so close when standing on the mound and even at Home Plate. I guess it looks smaller because now it's all just a parking lot.
It was a really good game. Nelson Figueroa pitched a complete game shutout, first in Citi-Field history. Jessie got a new sweater from Touch and we got a ball autographed by Alyssa Milano. Here is a quote from the label of her sweater.
"to rally for each other
to play fair
to run with abandon
to dance with life
is to Touch"
:)
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Speaking of Monday.. Lynz come over Monday night with Anja and we watched a great episode of Nova regarding the possibility of life on Mars. You can watch the entire episode here on PBS.
This was especially interesting right now because I just finished reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson which is all about Terra-Forming Mars.
Speaking of Terra-Forming.. I'm going to be playing Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect in November, it's a futuristic LARP that takes place on a newly colonized world. Just finished making my character the other day. Going to use a shot gun so it should be fun and at the very least different.. Come check it out with me..
Tuesday dinner was spent working with Kevin on his costume and on my gun. We had to modify the shells so the bullets go further by drilling holes in the bottom to let more air in. Sarah stole the food show with her soup. Hopefully she will post the recipe either here as a comment or on the Tuesday night dinner blog.
Holly came over last night and I re-made my Tomatillo Salsa tilapia dish, but this time with cod because Price Chopper didn't have any tilapia. It came out good but not as good as it does with tilapia. The salsa was just as good but the end product was a little less then I would have liked it to be.
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Yay, Laire is tomorrow... Speaking of yay! Garfunkel and Oates are coming to NYC next week, they will be at the Upright Citizen's Brigade on Monday and at the Gotham Comedy Club on Wednesday. Me and Jessie will be going to the Monday show, care to meet us there?
Wednesday night me and Jessie went to Armsy Abbey in Worcester MA, they did a special vegetarian beer diner with Pretty Things Brewery. The trick to the meal was that everything served had to be harvested from no further than 50 miles away from the restaurant. You may or may not know but the New England area has had a very odd summer and therefore a very odd crop growing season. This made the menu very challenging but they did a great job presenting a raw bar appetizer and 5 courses, each course came with a beer that Pretty Things paired. At dinner we met a very cool couple who had just moved to Auburn from CA to teach at Holy Cross, the restaurant only holds around 60 people and all tables hold 6 people so we ended up sitting with them, her mom and her brother.
Menu:
Raw Bar was lots of raw cut up veggies, with a goat cheese dip and home made bread. Even the butter was made fresh the night before. They paired the raw bar with their American Darling which is a light summer beer.
1st Course
Arugula & Black Seeded Simpson with Fresh Nectarines dressed with a Basil-Honey Vinaigrette and topped with Blue Goat Cheese and a Spent-Grain Crisp. This was also paired with the American Darling.
2nd Course
Creamy Baked Corn & Chevre Pudding. This was paired with Mr. Sysiphus which tasted like a Don De Dieu with a hint of cherry flavor. I think this was my favorite of the courses and also my favorite of the beers.
3rd Course
Roasted Corn Bisque served with Squash Fritters. This was served with their signature beer Jack D'Or. This beer was not well received at our table. I don't think any of the six of us finished it.
4th Course
Whole Wheat Popover filled with sauteed Black Trumped & Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms served with a Carrot-Parsnip-Mint Puree and Blanched Green Beans. This was served with St Boltoph's Town which is a dark beer, this was Jessie's favorite beer.
5th Course
Housemade Ricotta sweetened with Honey and set in a crust of Spent Grain & Whole Wheat Flour topped with Caramelized Peaches and a Lavender infused Whipped Cream. This was served with Baby Tree which reminded me of Slippery Slope and not just because of the 9.x% alcohol content.
In between each course the owner would speak as would the owners of Pretty Things. They would talk about the course you were about to have and the beer that went with it. It was a great experience although I didn't realize that it would last from 6pm till after 11pm.
I really hope they do more of these in the future.
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Hmm, I know I say this all the time but I really need to be better about writing blogs in a more timely fashion. Last blog was on the 15th.. So, what's happened since then? Lots of long nights for one. The problem is that I don't have the energy to write everything because I'm too busy doing it.. I know.. Excuses, excuses, excuses.. Well screw you... :P
Me and Jessie went over my mom's house on the 16th to hang out in the pool since we have not been able to do that so far this year. A tree fell in her backyard and hit part of the pool but it's still intact! The ladder broke in half and there is a small dent, but otherwise it's still usable. Had a really good time but ended up leaving my sunglasses there which is why I'm stuck in Farmville! Why? Because we went back there on Saturday the 22nd to get my sunglasses and she sucked me into that game because she needed more neighbors! Ok, so the real reason I have not written a blog is probably that I've been playing that stupid game. You have to go into this game every so many hours to harvest the plants you are growing. If you know you're going to be away for awhile you can plant long term things, but if you want to make money you need to plant the 4 hour crops.
The 17th (I know, I hate going day by day too I've been busy)... The 17th Jessie helped get together a raw foods meetup in Thompson, we ate lots of really good raw food and watched Fresh. Fresh is very similar to Food, Inc and OmnivoresDilemma. This movie was a little more in your face about the cattle farms and such, they even showed one scene where they were removing waste from the cows stomachs. They apparently cut a hole in the cow and permanently insert a tube so they can reach into the stomach area and remove the shit the cows can't digest! You know, at some point doesn't it just make sense to stop feeding them this shit to begin with?! I gotta think, when you have to install a tube in a cow so you can manually remove indigestible waste it should be a sign you're doing something wrong!
On the 18th we had dinner at our house.. How can I talk about dinner in the next paragraph after talking about watching a cow's insides be cleaned! Funny thing is, I made burgers! NOT beef burgers, they were made of buffalo and oh so good.
The 19th I went down to the Mets game with Bradley J and met up with Rick Lopez, Amber, Kris and Josh Goldberg. The game was interesting to say the least. They are seriously bad right now. Bobby Parnell gave up 8 runs in the 2nd inning and we lost by a BIG margin, I want to say it was something like 18-2. I know, I could go look it up but honestly I don't care. Murphy went 2-3 and that's really all that matters. I had an awesome time and we really pretty much stopped watching the game after a while and just hung out.
Thursday I went and hung out with Holly and had Mexican and stayed out way too late again.. I posted my facebook status last night.. "Another late night.. No wonder I'm tired all the time.. Ah, well.. Wouldn't trade it for anything.. :D" That's really the only thing I can say about not only Thursday the 20th but also for last night too, which by the way was a super cool night. Last night (I know I'm jumping ahead) I went to Holly's house. I made a buffalo rice dish and brought it down. The downstairs of her house is kinda odd, they have a family room off the bathroom? When you're in the main section of the house and you want to go to the family room you have to go through the bathroom, I don't think I've ever seen a bathroom/hallway before. The only other way to get to that room is to go outside. The upstairs of the house has two bedrooms and a bathroom and all the doors are like wood slat doors. They are vertical beams of wood with a cross beam near the bottom and top to hold it together. Plus, one of the bedrooms has a big overhead window and a wood canopey.
Nurit came over on Sunday morning and we went to the game with Matt. Randy met us at the stadium and we once again watched the hapless Mets lose. This time they actually made it an interesting game in the 9th before... Oh wait... Rewind to the beginning of this masterful game.. Oliver Perez started and failed to make it out of the first inning! Pedro Martinez started for the Phillies and Perez was taken out with 3-0 count while Pedro was batting. Yes, that's right, they took Perez out in the middle of an at bat and not only in the middle of any at bat, but in the middle of facing the opposing pitcher! I was trying to find out how often that has happened in baseball, but I can only find questions asking if that's legal so I guess that shows how infrequently it happens. I've certainly never seen it unless the pitcher was hurt which he was not. Speaking of things I've never seen. Pagan led off the Mets 1st with an Inside the Park Homerun! I mean, I've seen Inside the Park Homeruns but never live.. Oh and in the 9th with the Phillies batting and two outs Francour made an amazing catch and the ump said he trapped it, after a bit of an argument the umps actually reversed the call to the correct one! I mean how often does that happen.. Now all of this is great but lets get back to the Mets batting in the 9th. Down by two runs Castillo on 2nd and Murphy on 1st with Francour up at bat. No outs by the way, that's key here.. So.. The pitch, the hit and run is on, the 2nd baseman moves over to cover for the throw from the catcher.. Francour connects, he rips a line drive up the middle right into the waiting arms of the fucking 2nd baseman who takes one step and tags 2nd retiring Castillo and waves his arm slightly to the left to tag Murphy who had no chance to return to 1st to complete the UNASSISTED TRIPLE PLAY! There have only been 16 Unassisted Triple Plays in the history of MLB and this was only the 2nd ever that ended a game! You know, if you're going to lose a game at least this one was lost in style!
Now onto Monday.. Almost done.. I already did Wed and Thurs up in one of those tangents.. Monday me and Jessie ran to Manchester with hopes meeting Lynz and Anja for a 7:20 show of Ponyo. Well, we failed.. I hate Manchester, we made it to Red Robin around 7:05 and then preceded to get lost trying to get to the movie theater. Why didn't I just type it into my GPS? Because the movie theater is NOT in my GPS! Oh well, I stuffed my burger down as I walked from the car to the theater and we only missed the first few minutes of the movie. The movie was very cute and the voice acting was exceptional, it might be the best voice acting in a dubbed movie that I can remember. Not going to say much about other than go see it!
Tuesday dinner was at Ryan's this week. Before dinner we met at the pond by the house and went swimming. It was fun, but it made everything later than normal. We didn't eat dinner till at least 8:00. I didn't make anything this week but Jessie made a raw Strawberry Rhubarb pie.
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Tonight I'm going to see Jon Oliver with Jessie, tomorrow is Animefest XVII at Brad's house. Maybe I can sleep on Sunday?
