I'm on vacation and on the way to Disney.. We are taking the slow route to Florida.. We left Saturday and got all the way to Brooklyn! Left car at my friend Michelle's house and went into Manhattan for a pre-NY Anime Fest show. My friend's old dance troop was preforming so we went over to check it out. They are a super cute trio who dance to J-Pop and Anime songs.. After them a guy came up and sung a few songs, he was good too so it was a fun time. While we were at the show Jessie's friend Charles showed up and the 4 of us hung out for a while, we went over to the Mets Clubhouse shop because it was close by but didn't buy anything. After that Jessie wondered off with Charles and Me and Michelle went to Perfect Pint in NYC for dinner. I had The Perfect Cheese Steak which is "ny strip steak, applewood bacon guinness barbecued onions with irish cheddar and porter cheese", it was so good but oh so not healthy.. After dinner we went back to Michelle's house and played Mario Party with her room mates.
Went to bed far too late and woke up too early.. Long drive again... This time to NJ.. I know, we are getting real far in our journey towards Florida... Stopped at Matt's house and went over to a Chowderfest. Chowderfest is outdoors, sounds good right? Smeggin' weather didn't want to cooperate, it was cold and windy and if that was not enough it started to rain as soon as we bought our tickets. Was standing in line doubting the intelligence of going but oh well... It actually ended up being a really good time. They have two tents setup, one for "white chowder" and one for "red chowder", because of the rain everyone was staying under the tents and you really had to push your way to the front to get to the chowders. First place we went was a red chowder and it tasted like tomato soup. Left the red tent and me and Jessie waded into the white tent while Matt, Daniel and Sile went to get other food.. Once we got our system of pushing down we actually made it through the tent pretty quickly, most of them were good but the best was Panzone's Pizzza & Pasta which took 3rd place in the White category. This place Stefano's ended up winning both the red and the white but they were both crappy.. They must pay people off because they apparently win almost every year. Honestly I didn't have many of the reds but the one I liked the best won 2nd place in Reds.
After the fest we came back to Matt's house, Sile made home made Fish and Chips for dinner! So good... I took pics of the making process and the end process but my Droid cable is in the car so I won't be uploading any pics today.. Well, at least not yet... Went to bed super early (9:30) and slept for about 12 hours! My body really was in need of that after coming back from CA..
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Speaking of coming back from California.. Wednesday night I went to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the DBacks. I was going to take the train but ended up missing it, I was standing in line to buy my train ticket when the train left... Oh well, at least I didn't buy the ticket yet. Driving to AT&T Park shouldn't be too bad anyway, it's about 40 miles from Santa Clara and it was before rush hour so no problem.. /sigh... It took me almost 2 hours to get there and I got to park in the main A lot for $30!! What a bargain.. The stadium is in a beautiful area, it's right up against the SF Bay, the right field wall is right up against the water. I got in about 15 mins before the game and walked around the stadium, by the time I got to my seat the first batter had already hit a home run and the DBacks were up 1-0. The view from the seats were awesome and the people next to me were really cool. The guy right next to me was a season plan holder and he originally lived in NY and was a fan of the Giants before they moved to CA so we talked a lot about Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds and even Shea when it first opened. In the 4th inning I decided to go eat, the food on the upper level was not very exciting but the food on the field level was.. I got a crab sammich which was on butter toasted bread and served with cheese, it was very tasty! Unfortunately for me, while I was in line for food the Giants rallied and scored 3 runs to take a 3-1 lead. That was the final score which means all the runs were scored while I was not at seat.
Thursday was flight back day, but the flight was not till 10:45pm so I went up to Muir Woods after class and before my flight. The Muir Woods are right above SF and very beautiful! I posted pics on Flickr, go check them out. I don't think pictures can truly capture the amazing awe inspiring brilliance but they are still nice.. I felt very recharged from wondering the woods.. In the back of the parking lot they have a "first amendment area", it was a taped off area of the parking lot with sign saying this area was set aside for freedom of speech...
The flight from SF to Detroit was quick and I slept for most of it. The flight from Detroit to Boston was really annoying... We got on the plane in time for an "on-time departure" but the luggage people took way too long to load the plane to we ended up leaving about 20 mins late. Now the fun starts! Started to rise (got to about 10,000 feet) and they realized the door was not closed correctly. Had to turn around and land back in Detroit to reclose the door! Landed, opened door, closed door, refueled the plane and were ready to go again... Unfortunately now it was an "in-air incident" which means lots of paperwork... Left about 3 hours later than we were supposed to... Once in the air I slept again for a bit of the flight and then watched some Glee.
Ran home, showered and went to meet Becca for lunch.. I didn't even unload the car first because of all the delays in Detroit.. After she went to work I came home and started laundry and the process of getting ready for vacation.. Lynz came over for dinner and finished helping me pack..
And now the story wraps back around... About to leave NJ and head to my Uncle's house in West Virginia..
My VibramFiveFingers broke again the other day, I put the piece of the strap somewhere for safe keeping till I had a chance to sew it back on.. But... It would appear that wherever I put it is so safe that I can't even find it now... The only thing left to say is SMEG!
I kinda need them functional for this weekend since I'm playing Chatima and wear them as him.. I decided today to look for a knockoff pair but after searching for a while I'm finding that Vibram is doing a great job of shutting those places down as soon as they show up.. grrr.. The few that were still up and running were charging $50-$60 for the shoes + shipping.. The only place on ebay I did find for $25 wanted $25 in shipping and is in China so no hurried shipping would be available.. I hear REI has a crazy return policy so I might just buy a pair there and that way every time they break I can bring them back. I sent Vibram an amusing email today, they had a big thing on their website about if you have any information on counterfeit ones you should email.. Here is my email..
I purchased a pair of your fivefingers back in August of last year. They ripped for the first time in April, when I called your company the response was "well, you're not supposed to wear them everyday" and "we know they rip, you should try duct tape".. With comments like that how can you expect people to *not* purchase counterfeit ones? I sewed mine in April and have been wearing them everyday until they just ripped again. I now begin the process of looking for a counterfeit pair, I understand that they will probably fall apart in less than a year but how is that any different than yours?
Anyway, I ended up cutting the straps off today, I was reading on the vibram forums and people said that the shoes stay on with no straps. There are few people who say otherwise but at this point I don't really have another choice since I lost half of one of the straps anyway.. I figure I'll wear them today/tomorrow this way and if I really need to I can stop and REI on the way to Laire tomorrow..
....
Anyway, back to the Zev Zev..
I was up to Saturday July 3rd which was spent at my friend Chris' birthday party in NY.. Well that's not entirely true, most of the day was getting there.. We had a lazy morning but it was a good lazy because we didn't really have a time in mind to be there. He had these fireworks which can only be described by watching it in action. I have found a youtube video so you can enjoy the smegging beauty.. They are called Magic Snakes!
Sunday morning we (me, Jessie, Dianne and Randy) went to a raw restaurant in Beacon NY called Superfood Citizen, I can't find their real website in my 1.5 seconds of searching so here is the google link... :) I had a pizza and a "purple drink" which was all very good. The purple drink was beets and mangosteen as well as other good stuff. It did however make my pee purplish for the next few days.. After brunch we went to Brotherhood Winery which is right near their house. It is the oldest (never closed) winery in America, they made a alter wine before prohibition so they petitioned the government to stay open because the church needed their alter wine.. Gotta love the church?! Smegging politics.. Anyway, they make a really good riesling and one of the best meeds made commercially.
Monday was a craft day.. The main accomplishment was getting my Laire closet fixed, we took everything out of it and made a new frame for the top and then re-supported the straps and actually nailed it into the wood. It is MUCH bigger now and has everything in it.. We also found the tent we will get for FI, it's the Coleman Hampton Tent, it's $199 at Target but I'm sure I can find it cheaper online when we are ready to order. Interesting.. I may need to go get that now.. I just did a search for that tent and it's not listed on Coleman's website and the only sites I do see it on are more than Target... It's apparently a discontinued tent.. Here is a picture of it from an ebay listing..
Tuesday was dinner, Hoyle brought a little grill and we used that and Ryan's to grill up some tastiness!
Last night I went to my brother's house for dinner because we will be watching the kitties while they are away.. So you know how a lot of houses have a little loft area above stairs? Well, they have one of those areas and it's been just a wasted area till now... They made it a cat haven with their food, water scratching posts and play things.. So cute and probably the best use of that space I've seen.. :D
The other night I went to Mohegan Sun to get some stuff from LUSH. On the way down I text'ed around to see if anyone wanted anything.. Jessie asked for some Krispy Kreme donuts so I brought them home like a good husband, little did I know the horrors that would ensue.. Ok, I did know and I brought them anyway.. Does that make me a bad husband?
So, what happened?? A long time ago we had seen a Paula Dean show in which she took two donuts and put a burger between them.. Jessie, the healthy food lady, decided it would be a good idea to make an egg sammich using Krispy Kreme donuts.. Apparently it was indeed a good idea.. She said the end result was nothing but tasty..
Jessie had sent me a picture but I guess I didn't save it.. :( I will have to get a new copy and I'll post it to Flickr.
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Tonight I'm getting my tattoo touched up.. I know it needs to be done but I'm not really looking forward to it. Good thing is Red Dwarf afterwards, we are going to watch Season 7 tonight so everyone is almost caught up to real time.
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.
Today's rainy cold weather made me glad to be heading out of the North East. Weather in Santa Clara, 70s all week.. I'm glad to be going but glad it's only a week too, it's been a long time since I've been on the road so I'm torn with my sense for adventure and my sense of missing those back home..
Since last I wrote I did lots.. I was just getting ready to go to Laire when last I wrote, Laire was a great time. I even played on Friday night (have not done that since right before my surgery). Friday night was almost a mistake as I pushed myself a lot to far when Naryn went down and I felt the need to run her to get a life spell. After that little incident I had to lean on her to get back to the cabin. While relaxing in the cabin we got ambushed and we almost died, my crazy running speed (almost forgot how fast I can really run) saved my life and Naryn's, unfortunately it was not enough to save Ventrick. I stumbled my way back to the cabin once more and feared I had taken myself out of the weekend with my crazy running.
I woke up on Saturday and was surprisingly fine, so onto another day of hard core combat. Saturday night ended with a big mod in which I kept getting yelled at for breaking the line, I was a bit over zealous to kill things since I was finally able to again.
One of the coolest things about Laire was that Robyn came back.. I ended up hanging out with her most of Saturday going on mods and overseeing her warrior training. Friday night she hung out with me while I was doing the dishes and Saturday night she came with us to Veggie Heaven. I'm making her a shield now that she knows how to use one.. :)
Sunday night me and Jessie went and had dinner with dad so I could fix the speaker wires I put on backwards and to get my new blueray/dvd player.
Monday was another long crazy day, me and Jessie went down to NYC to see Garfunkel and Oates. We parked by the venue (Upright Citizen's Brigade) and walked over to Pure Food and Wine which is a raw vegan restaurant on the other side of Manhattan. Dinner was great and the show was better! We ended sitting center stage right behind Riki's mom, it was very cute to see how flustered she got by having her mom in the audience. If they are ever in your area I recommend seeing them, they are funnier live than they are on their CD/YouTube clips.
Tuesday was my 14 year dating anniversary with Jessie. To celebrate we had Tuesday night dinner at our house.. OK, well to celebrate the anniversary we went to see Garfunkel and Oates but on Tuesday Jessie broke open a bottle of ice wine we have had for years, it was very good and just reminds us both that we miss Montreal. The Tuesday night crowd was very small this week and we ended up having it in the basement. We will continue to have them in the basement till it gets too cold to do so..
Wednesday I went up to see Nurit, she cooked dinner and we hung out and watched Cheers. Thursday I was supposed to go see Stacy but she cancelled at the last minute. In a way I'm glad she did because me and Jessie got a chance to relax and I ended up going to bed before 9! I guess my body finally had enough of the late nights and needed the after Laire rest I was not giving it.
Friday Lynz came over and we walked to Bella's for dinner. The idea was to go to 85 Main for sushi but as we walked we decided we didn't want that. After dinner hung out and watched some Star Trek TNG.
Saturday, yesterday, me and Jessie went to the CT Ren Faire again. It was cold but there was no rain in site which means we got the full show this time. We saw a bunch of shows and ate lunch before leaving. I ended up getting called on stage during the Wheel of Mis-Fortune and got to sit down without a dunking after guessing the word right. :)
After the Ren Faire we went home, napped and met Matt, Sile and her parents for dinner. We were supposed to go to the Courthouse but because of the size of our party the wait was too long so we went to 85 Main. I had a pumpkin bisque with scallops that was ok. The scallops were good but the bisque left a bit to be desired, it was better after adding soy sauce. As an appetizer I got some Tuna sushi and it was really good, pretty big pieces and nicely cut.
I'm boarding in Hartford now.. I will post more later..
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?
I'm sorry for not writing anything, I keep saying this in most of my newest blogs.. I need to do a better job of sitting and writing at least once a week if not back to once a day. I'm not really trying to create the longest blogs ever. ;)
As mentioned in my last blog, me and Jessie went to see Jon Oliver in Boston on Friday the 28th. We ate at Jacob Wirth before the show and met a really cool couple (Kriss and Jonathan) who was sitting next to us. Jessie was trying to decide what to order (I know, shocking) and Jonathan started giving us his review of her choices, we hit it off really well and hung with them until we went into the show. The warm up comedian was the same warm up guy from when we went to see the Daily Show, he was much funnier this time. Jon Oliver was as good as expected so it was a very good night.
The only problem with the night is we got home very late (as expected) and I had to get up early in the morning to drive to Brad's house. AnimeFest was really good, but I think the name should be changed to Board Game Fest. Anime was only on in one room and it was mostly old stuff, the only Anime I watched was some of Ponyo in Japanese and that was at the end of the night. I played two games of Carcassonne: The City and won both and one game of Apples to Apples which I lost to Kelly (Brad's girlfriend). The kicker to that game is she joined late and still managed to get 7 cards first.. The highlight of the night was probably going out for Japanese food with Christian and Mara, we went to a place right by Brad's house (don't remember the name) and spent a while talking and catching up. I left in the early morning because I had drank way too much caffeine and there was no way I was going to sleep there.
The problem with writing blogs infrequently is I don't remember everything.. I know I did something on the 30th and 31st but I don't remember.. So, checked Google Calendar and Flickr and I have no records for those days. Nurit mentioned to me yesterday that she adds things to her calendar after she does them, now I see why she does that.. Just asked Jessie and she recommended checking my IM logs..
September 1st's dinner was at our house but I don't remember any specifics about dinner, don't even remember what I made.. I love chat logs! I just read the chat log with Holly and it reminded me that I made a Rhubarb Cheese sauce and put it over Ham. AH-HA, I just realized something.. When we went to make the Brazilian cheese Jessie asked me what happened to the Muenster we had in the fridge, now I remember.. I used it for the Rhubarb Cheese Sauce!
Ok, back to Sunday/Monday.. I just checked my chat logs with Holly and found out that Sunday was mostly spent sleeping, the rest of the time we watched Weeds. Monday night we watched more Weeds and Jessie made her "German" meal which was Chicken Sausages, Red Cabbage with BokChoi and Pirogies.
Wednesday Sept 2nd will always live in memory as the day Matt Salvatore lost to food! Casa Mariachi in Putnam has a 5lb Burrito challenge, if you win you get a bumper sticker, a shirt and your picture on a wall of fame. If you lose you get your picture on the wall of shame and pay $27 for the burrito (if you win it's free). Anyway, I think he made two fatal mistakes: 1. He chose Chicken which means he got 5lbs of shredded chicken. 2. He didn't spread the toppings (guacamole and sour cream). You have an hour to finish, he probably had half of it down in the first 10 mins before slowing down. He was still moving at a good pace till he hit the 2nd consecutive glob of sour cream which crushed his hopes. There are pictures, check my Flickr.
I was supposed to have dinner with Lynz on the 3rd, she called me from work to tell me her mom had tickets for the CT Defenders for that night so me, Lynz and Anja met her mom at the stadium instead. We sat in one of the luxury boxes and made friends with the waitress. It was nice to be able to chat with Lynz's mom and it was fun explaining baseball to Anja. Cutter came up and hung out with us in the box which I think made Anja's night. One of the biggest highlights for me had to be watching Lynz and Anja doing push ups in the luxury box during extra innings! We ended up leaving the game early because it was a weekday and the game didn't matter since the Defenders had already clinched the division.
Nothing like going to Laire when you're already exhausted! Friday drive to Laire was tough, I had to stop a bunch of times and get coffee and walk around to stay awake. Did my work shift Friday night and went right to bed. Saturday I played, and when I say played I mean "FULL Combat". The plan was to play from morning till dark, the actual-laity is I played from about 9am till 3am! The only time I stopped was when I went out to Veggie Heaven for dinner. I ran, I jumped, I fought and I killed! Sunday was more of the same, got up around 10 and played till about 2am only stopping to go to Fu's for dinner. I did plan to play Monday but when I woke up I was so sore I had to leave. When I say sore I don't mean my tendons either, I mean my calf muscles. All in all this was a VERY successful event, no tendon pain and no knee pain!
September 8th's dinner was at our house again and Nurit came out for it. She got there early so we had some time to hang out before the crowds showed up. Speaking of the crowds: Sara, Sean, Ryan, Gwen, Lynz, Jesse and Marie all ended up calling out. I made some steaks on the grill and Kevin made some kebabs and Sarah brought shrimp for the grill. It was a good night but most of it was spent with me at the grill, ran out of gas so me and Joe had to go get more before I could finish grilling.
The 9th and 10th are missing from my memory and I don't have any chat logs with Holly for those days because she was not at work. I know the 10th Jessie went to Yoga and then to Hoyle's house, I hung out with Elizabeth for a bit and then I ate dinner, made the Catupiry Cheese and went to bed. I'm going to guess the 9th was watching Weeds with Jessie.
The 11th me and Jessie went over to Matt and Sile's house and made the Brazilian style pizza. We made two, one traditional style with ham, onions, hard boiled egg and catupiry cheese and the other one had lots of veggies. The pizza's came out great and we had a good time chatting and hanging out.
Jessie was real sick on the 12th, we watched LOTS of Weeds and ended up bringing her to the hospital in the evening. Joe came over around 9 and I went to dinner with Matt at the Courthouse.
Phew - Almost done.. The 13th I went and had lunch with Lynz for her birthday, I packed up a picnic and we went and got "lost" in the woods in Willimantic for a few hours. We found a nice spot in the woods that had a little stream sat, relaxed and snuggled.. Yay picnics, I've missed you.. Wine at Lunch returns, at least for a day. After lunch I headed back home and took Jessie out to a corn maze. We went to the corn maze in Pomfret, their maze is laid out as a spider in it's web. They had a bunch of scarecrows scattered through the maze and you had to answer 9 questions about them (which one plays baseball, which one is holding a christmas bear) so you couldn't just "solve" the maze without finding all the scarecrows. I like corn mazes and hopefully we can get to the one in Thompson before the season ends.
We're finally on the current week! Monday I went to Nurit's new house and hung out there with her and her room mate helping her organize her room. We went to this amazing apartment complex to get her a box spring from a couple that couldn't get it in their unit. This apartment complex was built inside an old middle school so it had massive ceilings and massive hallways. I didn't feel right taking any pictures but wished I had. We went to Ohara's which is an Irish restaurant/pub by her house, I had a Wasabiaki Salmon which was a wasabi/teriyaki glazed salmon. It was very tasty but certainly not spicy.
Tuesday - Dinner.. I made cheeseburgers at Hoyle's request (it was his birthday) and Badger made some amazing pork chops. Sara, Sean, Lynz and Kristen did not come this week. Hoyle brought Janine and Kevin brought two new people who were both very cool. After dinner and after Rowan left we pulled the porn pile out and tried to get some porn diving going. We didn't get any porn diving but we did at least sell a few.
Wednesday and Thursday was Weeds, Weeds and more Weeds. We are half way through season 4. I guess it's not fair to just say Weeds, Weeds and more Weeds, we also watched Daily Shows (welcome back after a 3 week vacation), Monk, History Detectives and Chopped.
--Quote of the Day
Another day, another way to change the future of yesterday. - Stacy Davenport
Upcoming Events: Works Progress Administration concert at Club Passim on Nov 13th, we are going to the 7pm show if you want to join us.
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?
Last night I made dinner for Lynz and I.. Tonight I'm making dinner for Jessie and I.. Both dishes feature Horseradish as the main ingredient..
Last night:
Grass Fed Rib Eye
Corn
Grilled Potato
Last night's sauce was: Big ass piece of Horseradish (about 1&1/2 inch of root)
Lots of garlic (an entire bulb)
6oz Greek Yogurt - Plain
A pour of Cider Vinegar
Cut the potatoes in half and spread the sauce on and closed the potato up before putting it in some foil. Cook on grill for LONG time, they were mostly done. Added some salt to them after they were cooked.
Pour the rest of the mixture on the steak and grill. Remember to save some to reapply when you flip the steak.
Tonight:
Tilapia
Rice
Mushroom and Garlic Spinach
Tonight's Sauce:
Big ass piece of Horseradish (about 1&1/2 inch of root)
Lots of garlic (an entire bulb)
Piece of Ginger
The juice of 6 lemons
1/4 of an Onion
A pour of Cider Vinegar
Salt
Let the Tilapia soak in the mixture for awhile, then wrap it in Banana Leaves with some of the sauce. Grill the Tilapia in the Banana Leaves.
Pour the rest of the sauce in a sauce pan with some cut up mushrooms and more garlic (maybe 2-3 cloves). Heat it up and toss spinach in for a few seconds before turning off heat, cover to let the spinach absorb the flavors.
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The other night me, Jesse, Jessie, Joe and Badger played a round of mini-golf at Mulligan's Island in Cranston RI. They have two courses, red - easy & blue - hard. At my suggestion we played the hard course which was pretty hard indeed. I posted a bunch of pics on Flickr. There was one hole which nobody finished. It was three islands with hollowed out logs between them. The bastards put hills in front of the logs so it was real hard to get into them. Nobody made it off the 2nd island before the 6+ stroke limit.
Joe ended up winning with a final score of 47, Jesse had 48, Badger 56, Me 59 and Jessie at 63. I certainly want to play it again when it's light out so I can better see the hills from the tee point.
At the end of the course they have a plinko type ball return, if you get the ball on the platform you win a free game. I was the last to drop my ball and the only one to win!
It's been far too long.. I guess I will start with the list I posted in the last blog...
-DDLC
The guy from DDLC came out (a while ago at this point) to do the yearly cleaning of our oil burner and to fix the door on the chimney. He was a really funny guy who was a lot of fun to talk to. Apparently the lady on the phone told me that he could of course fix the door but they never told him that he was going to do that so he didn't bring the stuff he needed to do it. Luckily he had spare stuff in his van from the last one he did so he was able to take care of it. I was going to post this whole big thing about talking to him but it's been so long now I don't remember most of it. I really need to blog more often.. /sigh
On the same day I had the lady from the town zoning board come out and look at where we want to put the fence, she said as far as zoning was concerned there was nothing stopping me but recommended I talk to the guy in the highway department to make sure it was ok for snow cleaning and walking rights. Talked to him a few days later and he said that as far as he was concerned if nobody complains there is no problem. He did say that the town owns 40ft of road so I need to measure from Elizabeth's yard (back of the sidewalk) to our yard and see how many feet that is.
-Dr Pialtos
Apparently I skipped a year in my yearly exams.. Did that matter? No.. I still have the same vision as I had the day after my surgery in terms of distance. What has changed is my astigmatism, I now have 2 "clicks" of an astigmatism, it was 1 "click" 2 years ago. He said he would not prescribe glasses for anyone under 4 "clicks" so I guess I have a while still before I have to worry about that which is a great thing! When he first put the letters up and asked me to read the lowest line I did without hesitation and he asked if I had memorized the chart.. :)
-Jesse and Marie's Party
This is one of those things that at the time I had lots of cool stuff to write about but now it just seems outdated.. I had a really good time there and met some really awesome people. Their house is great for hosting parties, they have a nice size deck and two fire pits, one close to the house and one far away on the yard. The basement has a built in bar and plenty of room for people to hang out. One of the really good things about going was it was the first time me and Marie really got to talk, which at the time was all exciting but now it's common place.. It took a while to get to know them but I'm really glad that Sara brought them into the Tuesday dinner crowd because they are really cool people..
-Yankees game on Sunday
I went to a Yankee game with Matt, I bought tickets for us to go to a game for his birthday earlier in the year. This was my second time at the new Yankee Stadium and my opinion has of it has really gone up. The first time I sat in the bleachers with my cousins and I was far from impressed with the stadium.. Back then we had walked around the Main and Field levels of the stadium and it was very closed and felt like a mall that happened to have a baseball game. This time I sat in the upper deck and was very impressed at how open it was, the concessions were all done like at CitiField so that you had a view of the stadium no matter where on the upper deck you were. Me and Matt walked around each deck and I think the upper deck is by far the best place to be. It still pissed me off that you had to wait in different lines for different food when the two lines were at the same booth but it wasn't so bad up there because you could still see the field and still felt like you were at a game instead of in a mall.
Go check it out! I took the train from New Haven directly into Yankee Stadium, on the way I went into the bathroom and saw a sticker for this site. It made me laugh and laugh even harder when I actually looked at the site. Apparently it's a website whose premise is that watching birds is voyeurism and must be stopped!
- Ruca
I met Ruca the other day (again, a while ago now).. We met at a parking lot near Holly's house and ate outside with her (Ruca, not Holly) leashed to the chair. After dinner we went for a walk on a trail in the woods. I even got to walk her for a while which was good. She can certainly pull so when it got to uneven ground I gave control back to Holly because I was afraid of hurting my tendon. Still have not met Brutus, we need to schedule a time for me to do that. Who's Ruca and Brutus? Holly and Louie's dogs..
- Mets game - Ebbet's Club / Cleaning / Air Conditioning / Hornet = wants bats
Dad bought tickets for me and him to sit in the Ebbet's Club for one of the games we had tickets for in our season plan. We gave our tickets away and drove down on Wednesday, unfortunately the game was rained out right at 7pm. I was trying to get the house cleaned for the BBQ and had everything scheduled so that I could go to the game on Wed and still get everything done for Friday night. When they announced the rain out they said that our tickets would be good for the next day at 7pm! So much for my cleaning schedule.. We headed home just to make the trip again the next day. It really is a long ride/day when going to the games because we leave typically at 2pm for a 7pm game so that we can get good parking and eat/relax a bit before the game starts. Got a little cleaning done late Wed night and a little more Thursday morning.
Let me back up a bit, Wednesday morning I got up and mowed the lawn until the batteries ran down on the mower. I really like mowing the lawn and it was the first time this year I got to do that because my legs are finally good enough to push the mower around. My enjoyment of mowing the lawn was really shit on when I got stung by a hornet near the bushes in the front of the house, if getting stung by a hornet was not bad enough I got stung on my left tendon! Let me back up a LONG time.. A few years ago I was cleaning out the area around the stream by our house and stepped on a ground nest and was stung an assload of times in a matter of a few seconds, it hurt for days and apparently left me hyper sensitive to hornet stings! So, back to modern times (well, modern in terms of this dialog), by Thursday morning my leg was REAL swollen. It was to the point where having a sock on was painful because of the compression of the sock. I looked up what eats hornets and found bats being the main animal that eats them. I am seriously looking into getting a bat house or two to put in my yard.
So, back to CitiField with my leg crazy swollen and lots of cleaning not getting done. I was a bit beat up and stressed out going down to the game but I would not have missed sitting in those amazing seats. The Ebbet's Club is at the top of the field level behind home plate, they have a private eating area that has a bar and some really good food. They have some normal food like hot dogs, nachos, and pretzels but they also have hand carved sandwiches which were amazing. You pick pork or turkey and that goes on a nice roll with your choice of toppings. On Wednesday I had pork with horseradish mayo, bbq sauce, an olive spread (think muffaletta) and cheddar cheese. It was $12.00 and came with home made chips. On Thursday I had meatballs on the same bread which was not as good as the pork sandwich. Drinks in the Ebbet's club have FREE refills! The other neat thing about our tickets is that it allows you into all of the other clubs in the stadium, well not all of them. It allows you to go into any club that's considered "lower" than the club you have tickets to. Because of that we walked through the Excelsior level and into the Ceaser's Club, the Ceaser's Club is behind home plate on the Excelsior level.
So, these seats were so close we got a bunch of foul balls into our section. One of them hit about a foot away from dad's head, the second one hit right above my head and I caught it as it bounced down, the third one hit my knee! Why didn't I catch that one? Well, I was texting Ivon (phone in right hand) and drinking a beer with my left hand. Sure, I could have dropped the beer but that would have freed up my left hand I probably would have missed it anyway and I didn't think dropping my phone was a good idea. I will say that was the last text I sent while a batter was up.
Oh, I put air conditioning into this section too.. Why? Well, while I was at the game Wednesday Jessie called me from Walmart to tell me she was buying a air conditioner for the bedroom.. I hates the ac so I am sleeping in the spare room for the summer..
Speaking of my leg/hornet sting, I went to the Urgent Care facility on Friday and got put on all kinds of crappy medication that I'm done with now.. If you ever get put on Prednizone be prepared to be moody and hungry..
- bbq
What to say.. It was great.. Thank you all who made it, screw you all who didn't.. ;)
- Man's night out
Kevin had the idea for us to do a man's night out the other night. Matt, Kevin, Ryan and myself went to JD Poopers and ate some good food and played some pool.. We played best 2 of 3 in team mode with me and Matt winning and playing each other for champion of the day which went to Matt as he crushed me in the final game..
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Former Giant Brad Benson makes a new marital vow, apparently he now owns a Hyundai dealership in NJ and decided he was not going to have sex until his dealership is the #1 dealership! Don't believe me, check out his youtube page..
While we were driving to and from CitiField we heard an add on the radio in which he asked everyone to please help him out because he wanted to have sex again! Crazy stuff...
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I started tracking my gas usage.. Here is the link to my car.
The site keeps a historical graph and tells you what percentage of the EPA you are getting. If you decide to track your gas usage send me the link..
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That's all the stuff I had in the last blog and in this text document I've working on.. Now on to new stuff...
Jessie went to a raw retreat and some dude there had these on. She told me about them and I went and tried them on with Holly.. I got a pair of brown KSO on the way to Laire and I have to say they ROCK! It's like walking around barefoot but with a sole. The oddest thing was when I stepped in mud and it went up in between my toes. Side note to that is that I had great traction in the mud because I was able to use all my toes.
Speaking of Laire, I played my barbarian shaman character and actually did a little running around. I played from Sat morning till about 11:00. I didn't leave the inn at night because I didn't want to step odd and hurt myself.
Monday night me, Jessie, Joe and Badger went to see Food Inc at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence, RI. If you've read the Omnivore's Dilemma you know what this is about. There were a few new things shown and it did a very good job of presenting the case against big factory farms. After the movie we went to Wild Colonial Tavern which is a really old bar on Water St. We hung out and had a few beers while playing pool. We did a tournament style and the final game came down to me and Badger with Badger beating me in the end. I'm sensing a theme here, I keep getting into the final game and falling just short of the victory..
- Tuesday Dinners..
Last week (8/4) we had dinner at our house as a change of pace, the weather was great and we setup the tables outside in the driveway and set the kids to watch Howl's Moving Castle and Totoro in the basement. Ryan brought over a venison roast for the grill, it came out really good. I cut it up into strips and seasoned it with (I don't remember right now) and grilled them for a few mins. How am I supposed to put recipes up if I don't write them down and don't remember.. I suck.. If anyone who watched me season the meat knows what I put on it please post it as a comment.. After dinner we made a fire in our new firepit and got to listen to Lynz & Marie play the Banjo and Dulcimer until Lynz's string broke.
This week (8/11) we were back at Ryan's house. Kevin, James, Fey and Mandy brought Muchkin Booty and we ended up getting a big game going. It's an ok game, I am just not a big fan of card games. Give me a nice long board game any day..
Last night me and Jessie met Holly and Louie at Mohegan Sun and went to Bobby's Buger Palace.. Bobby as in Bobby Flay, does this mean I can cross him off my Iron Chef list? Nah.. But Bar Americana is opening in Mohegan Sun as well so I will cross him off after I eat there. It was very good but was a little pricey. My burger (Miami Burger) was $7.50 and then you have to buy fries on top of that for $2.50. They said the fries were big enough for two people, they lied.. Holly was the only one of us to get her burger "Crunchified" which just means with chips on it. We tried to get her to say "Chrunchified" but she just said "with chips on it".. After dinner I lost some money on the slots and then wandered the mall and played H2Overdrive in the arcade. It's a kick ass 4 player boat racing game. If you see the machine somewhere you should play it.. :)
3 Cups of Brown Rice seasoned with Sushi Seasoning and Old Bay
1 large bundle of Brocollini fried with lots of garlic and oil
I used about 4 tablespoons (more if you have it) of Jessie's raw nacho cheese
Mix together and serve.. :) I know, you don't know how to make Jessie's raw nacho cheese, well I don't either.. Maybe she'll post it here or on the Tuesday dinner blog.
Back in 2005-2006 everyone in baseball wanted LastingsMilledge but the Metswouln't trade the "future star" for anyone.. Just for the fun of it I went back this morning to see who we could have gotten for him..
Here are some highlights:
November 2005 - Manny Ramirez to the Mets for LastingsMilledge and YusmeiroPetit
-Denied.
Feb 2006 - Barry Zito to the Mets for LastingsMilledge and Aaron Heilman
-Denied.
March 2006 - Barry Zito to the Mets for LastingsMilledge and Brian Bannister
-Denied.
July 2006 - Roy Oswalt to the Mets for LastingsMilledge and Aaron Heliman
-Denied.
So, the Mets held fast to Lastings who ended up hitting a MASSIVE .241 in his 2006 debut season and .272 in 2007 before being traded for Ryan Church and Brian Schnieder who are not even in the same league as the players listed above! Where is Lastings now? In Pittsburgh's minor league system. He hit .167 this year before Washington dumped him.
Why am I bringing up old news? Because what is old will be new again.. Last night the Mets turned down a deal for Roy Halladay because Toronto wanted Fernando Martinez. Martinez is listed in the "top 50 prospects of MLB" and is only 20, but he hit .176 this year before going down with season ending knee surgery. Why can't we learn from our mistakes.. I am so angry at the Mets for not making this move. The rest of the trade included Bobby Parnell (2-3 with a 4.39 lifetime ERA), Jon Niese (1-1 6.57 lifetime ERA), and Ruben Tejada (SS hitting .272 in AA so far this year)..
Let's just have one big WTF for Omar Minaya! How can you not make this trade!
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In other not annoying news.. Jessie bought me banana leaves the other day and last I night used them for the first time. I made a tilapia with garlic, pepper, white pepper, anchochili powder and lemon wrapped in the banana leaves and grilled. It was so good. If the rain stops later I may be making it again for tonight's dinner.
Wednesday night me and Jessie went to a renewable energy symposium in Thompson CT. It started with a talk about water energy out by one of the waterfalls.. After the talk we walked back to the library for the rest of the symposium, during the talk I recognized a girl from VSC (Delia) and we ended up chatting. As it turns out Jessie and Sara had been given her information last year and they never got together.. What a cool small world.. Anyway, we ended up hanging out with her for the rest of the night and made plans for her and her husband (Martin) to come with us to dinner and the RiverFire on Saturday.
The rest of the symposium was nice, they talked about solar energy, wind energy and geo-thermal. If you're building a house today the government will basically pay for you to put in geo-thermal which is awesome but you only get a percentage off if you're replacing an already existing setup. Solar is nice but we don't have a southern facing roof so does not really do us too much good.
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Thursday night me and Jessie went and enjoyed a lovely bottle of wine while we ate outside in the patio seating at Bella's! Yay, BYOB outside.. I had their linguine and clams and Jessie had a shrimp pasta dish. Both of them were excellent as usual. Their head chef Allen does a great job of combining flavors. I can't say often enough how good the food there is.. If you're ever in or around Putnam make sure you get to Bella's..
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Friday night me and Lynz went to Waterfront Mary's in Webster. We sat on the deck outside even though the smell of rain was in the air.. I really love the fact that you can drive your boat up to the restaurant, I know I can't do that but it's awesome. There were two ladies trying to leave via boat and the boat was having problems and one of the ladies was obviously drunk and yelling alot (in a funny/happy way). The girls next to us made a joking comment about beating her up if we paid them.. If you have not been to Waterfront Mary's they have a gazebo with a large table in it. As the rain got closer I recommended the 5 of us (me, Lynz and the three ladies at the next table) go steal the gazebo table. We went for it but someone had beat us there so we ended up trying to sit under the umbrella at the bar. While we were trying to figure out lighting over there the gazebo table opened up and we pounced.
We had an awesome time hanging out and after we all ate we moved inside to get away from the bugs that were eating me and Gladi alive. We stayed a lot later than we planned but it was a great night. What a week for meeting random awesome people.. :)
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Saturday me and Jessie cleaned a bit in the morning, went to Quaddick Pond in Thompson and relaxed at mid day and cleaned again in the late afternoon. The house was pretty much cleaned (except floors) before anyone got there. We had Hoyle, Joe, Rowan, Delia and Martin all meet at the house around 4:30.. We walked down to Thai Place and ate before heading over to the River Fire.
Ryan, Gwen and Tim met us over at the River Fire and we grabbed a great spot right on the water till we were yelled at for sitting on the rocks.. We ended up going to the other side of the river where we wouldn't be disturbed.. The River Fire itself was pretty lame and we ended up going back to the house for Apples to Apples till almost midnight.
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Sunday morning me and Jessie went out and did some shopping.. We got a new screened in gazebo for the back yard (where the picnic table is), a portable fire pit, a boche ball set and some other stuff for the house including the miracle hangers for my closet. Afterwards we ate lunch at Buster's and went home to setup the gazebo. Matt came over and helped us (I don't think two people could have put it together). We cleaned the house more and I actually feel ahead of schedule to get the house cleaned for the BBQ.
Speaking of BBQ. Matt, Sile and Daniel came over to eat the first meal in our new gazebo. I made pork chops with balsamic, soy sauce, garlic, and lemon pepper seasoning. I added some hot sauce to Matt and Jessie's but kept mine and Sile's unspicey. I also got a 5lb bag of Sabbrett hot dogs so we won't be needing those for the BBQ and we had some corn on the cob. Daniel actually ate most of a hot dog and half a corn on the cob! Matt and Sile brought over some sides and beer and made it a great first gazebo dinner.
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After everyone left Jessie got me to start watching Weeds. We watched a few episodes of season 1, it's a pretty good show and it certainly has potential.
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Today I have a guy coming to give us a price on putting a fence in our front yard and we are actually moving forward with getting estimates to replace our windows. I have a rough estimate from a place in Danielson and I am having Gladi's brother come from Webster to give us another quote.
Flickr has been updated with a few real nice pics, check 'em out..
Pedro Martinez finally signed today, the problem is he signed with the PhuckingPhillies.. They got him for $1 million and he is going to start pitching in the minors to get ready for big league action. There is no mention of when he will be at the major league level but I'm sure he will help them beat us up later in the year.. /sigh
In other baseball news - I know, you're excited.. Bore-ass is claiming collusion during the off season in regards to free agents.. Maybe you're just asking for too much money jackass...
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Dinner was really good last night, everyone made some great food.. I made a mushroom dish which was:
1 package Baby Bella Mushrooms
1 package Shitaki Mushrooms
1 package Oyster Mushrooms
thin coating of oil in pan
a bunch of Balsamic
a little soy sauce
2 tablespoons of chopped Garlic
2 teaspoons of Chili Powder
I'm not sure what the best part of the night was but I don't think anyone would argue to hard if I said it was Kristen's dessert. I should have taken a pic of that because it was wonderful.
Lynz came over with Anja last night for dinner.. I went to the store and started getting a bit frustrated trying to buy a salad dressing that was gluten free, I was in a bit of a hurry and after looking at the first few dressings I gave up and decided to make my own. I decided I would make a chunky sauce and use the chunky bits to cook the tilapia in. The sauce came out really good so I figured I would post the recipe.
5 tomatillos
1 green pepper
1/4 onion
1 large chunk of garlic (the garlic we have has monstrous cloves, I cut one clove in half twice to put in the sauce.. I would say it's equivalent to 3 normal size cloves)
approx 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
a pinch or two of salt
- Throw all of that into a food processor and get it all ground up (keep pretty chunky) then add oil to make it thinner, I would say about 4 tablespoons of oil. Blend again but not too much because otherwise it will get less chunky. Now take it off and put it on low heat till it warms up a bit, once it warms up put a touch of Agave in to sweeten it.
- Now scoop out some sauce, try to get a bunch of chunks and spread them onto a frying pan. Put the tilapia on the sauce (fish should not be touching the pan so it stays nice and moist), put more sauce on top and cook on medium heat till the top gets white and flaky. Meantime the sauce should stay on low heat to continue to meld the flavors.
- I also made brocolini which I put in a pan with a little bit of oil and salt, cover it so that it steams in the oil. Cook it until the skin starts to caramelize.
- Carefully take the tilapia out of the pan when it's done and put on more chunks.
- What you have left will be a watery sauce which would be good for salad dressing or, as we did, something to top your rice or quinoa with.
After Lynz left I started folding laundry and, because Luna peed on the bed in the spare bedroom, start more laundry. While I was folding laundry the oddest thing happened, I logged into gmail and noticed Kaitlyn was online! I ended up chatting with her on IM while I folded laundry! It was a little surreal having her on IM and knowing that she is now reading this blog.. Welcome back to the internet world Kaitlyn... I added her blog link to the random links section..
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Tuesday night I skipped dinner for the first time, it was not the first dinner I missed but it was the first I missed not due to travel. Me and Melissa went to the Red Sox game instead. A co-worker has season tickets in row B of the Right Field Roof Box, they are awesome seats and it was probably the first time I felt I had good seats in Fenway. The seats still didn't face home plate but at least the pitch of the seats made it so that I could see over the heads of the people sitting in front of me. I hate sitting on the field level there because if anyone sits in front of you (and at Fenway that means all the time) you can't see the field. The game was a great pitching duel with the Red Sox coming out on top, the entire game was only 2 hours 15 minutes! The food choices at Fenway do leave a bit to be desired but the burger I had was really good, probably because they were out when I ordered it so I got a fresh one. They had signs for a kosher stand and I was going to get a knish but then I saw that their kosher "stand" was a vending machine! It did have knishes but I didn't feel up for testing out a vending machine knish.
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Laire this weekend.. I am planning on "playing" Daimone for the full weekend, I say playing in quotes because I will be non-combat still. The Order is staying in the inn which means I can play at night too because I won't have to walk down to the cabin. Hopefully I'll win lots of gold at night while everyone else is out killing the bad guys.. :)
