George Lucas has nothing on Terry Brooks when it comes to ending a book/movie on a series of downers... I just finished reading Bearers of the Black Staff which is book 1 in the Legends of Shannara series and I have to stay a bit stunned on the way it ended. In the last hour of so of the book half of the main "good guys" get killed!? I'm not saying he leaves them in cliff hangers or anything, he just outright kills them.. I'm obviously not going to say who lives or dies but holy jeez.. What a serious series of downers.. And Randal thought Empire Strikes Back ended on a series of downers, at least in that movie none of the main characters got killed...
The really shitty thing is that the next book does not come out till next year, when will I learn not to read a part of a series as soon as it comes out.. Wait, I did learn that but apparently I must have forgotten... On a side note, I still have not read the latest Wheel of Time or the third Eragon book so as I said, but..
Anyway, if you have not read the new Terry Brooks book yet don't.. I'm NOT saying don't read it ever, I'd just wait till next year and read both of them together..
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As you may or not know Luna loves peeing on my bed, she did so the other night and I ended up trying to sleep on the normal (select comfort) bed. I was in bed for about 10 mins before I started getting real itchy so we decided to take it apart and really clean it the next day. When we did so we found mold growing, yum... Anyway, called Select Comfort and they mailed us an entire new bed, now the question is do we put it together or do we sell it? Ever since we got that bed Jessie has been unhappy with it so we are thinking of selling the *new* bed on eBay and buying something else. I am probably going to list it tonight but if anyone who is reading this is interested ($1200?) let me know and I will end the eBay auction.
This last weekend I went to Brad's house for his AnimeFest, I really think each year it becomes less of an appropriate name. The entire time I was there I don't think there was actually any Anime on, people were watching movies but not Anime.. I for one played Heroscape, which is basically a board game version of Shining Force, Castle Ravenloft which sucked and Empire Builder which is always one of my favorites. I really want to get Heroscape but I have to admit the size of the board makes storing it rather daunting, I actually got up and walked away from Castle Ravenloft it was so bad.. What can I say about Empire Builder? We realized that Empire Builder is to thank for all of our Board Game hobbies, back when I was working at Saturday Matinee my friend Joe introduced me to that game and I in turn pulled Brad and Christian away from console gaming long enough to fall in love with it.. I wonder how many other people owe their board game addiction to Empire Builder? After all these years and many, many board games later it's still one of my all-time favorites!
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I'm about to start some crazy long time away from home, I guess I can't complain too bad because two weeks of that time is vacation but.. At least it's not as bad as it would have been, I swapped one week of travel with another instructor. Next week I'm in Santa Clara CA, I will be going to an Oakland A's game on Sunday and a San Fran Giants game on Wednesday so it will be a fun trip.. I get home Friday morning and we will probably leave for Disney World Friday night or maybe Saturday morning. I was supposed to go to Dallas as soon as I got back but that's the week I swapped out so I will be teaching in Franklin instead, then the next week I go to Mclean VA.. So I will be home one of the next five weeks... Will have to make sure the time I am home is as full as possible..
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Speaking of as full as possible.. Saturday I'm going to the CT Ren Faire with Jessie, my mom and Joe.. If anyone is interested in joining us let me know... This year they are doing an all musical show..
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?
Bloggity Blog Blog... What's new with me? Well.. The biggest thing is that I fought at Laire this weekend.. I was full combat Saturday from when I woke up till right before feast. We woke up to some orcs trying to attack our tent site and we went after them to kill them, during the fight Lux had his sword stolen so we tracked them into their encampment. I didn't get a chance to swing in the wake up fight because I was walking to slow to get into the fight. I was wearing my sandals and didn't want to chance rolling my ankle on the rocks. I did however fight at the encampment, I hit a few, killed one and didn't get hit so I would call that success. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until they announced arena fights. I have never lost in an arena fight and really wanted to fight their undefeated champion, I also really didn't want to hurt myself so I originally denied the fight. After watching a few fights however I changed my mind and entered the arena, considering I had not fought since November I think I did pretty well. I did end up losing in the end but I made a pretty good showing of it. Good news is that I can still at least say I'm undefeated in the Avalonian arena..
So, how are my feet? Very good, thanks for asking.. I'm sore like I over did it at the gym but at least I'm not in pain.
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The week in review..
Wednesday night I went out with Holly, we went to Paul's Pasta Shop in Groton. It's a nice place right on the water, I had a Spaghetti Pie which is Spaghetti baked in a deep dish with ricotta, hot and sweet sausage, meatballs, green peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese topped with red sauce. It was so good and crazy big, when it arrived I cut it in half and brought that half home for Jessie to eat for lunch the next day. Holly had PaparadelleCarbonara which is a crazy wide pasta tossed with prosciutto and peas cooked in a black peppercorn alfredo sauce. After dinner we drove to Dairy Queen and then went and stood on the waterfront by the restaurant.
Thursday night I went to dinner with Lynz, we went to Coyote Flaco in Mansfield Center. We sat outside on their deck and ended up having to prop a menu up to block the sun from being in my eyes. The place had this "door handle" which is a man's worst nightmare.. It was a horseshoe pointed upwards around crotch height. I took a picture of Lynz standing next to it, I will post it on Flickr when I'm done with this blog so you can check it out. I had a skirt steak which came with a chicken enchilada, beans and rice. The steak was very good but the enchilada was a little dry, it was much better once I dumped a bunch of guacamole on it. Lynz had chicken mole (if memory serves).
I'm so glad that summer is finally starting, to be able to sit outside two nights in a row should not be a novelty in July. Speaking of summer, I really don't want to be sitting in this class right now, it's really nice out and I'm sitting in a room with windows which just makes it worse because I get to see the sunshine but not get to be in it..
Sunday I went to the Mets game with my friend Lee and his wife. It was awesomely hot and the sun was on us for the whole game.. So, you know how when you normally wear pants and your legs never get sun? Well, that would be a good time to put sunscreen on your legs.. My knees got really sunburned, possibly to the point of sun poison. I had a really tough time driving home and ended up with a really bad headache after taking a bath. I bought some after sun burn lotion while I was in Australia, I put that on it after my bath which made it feel much better. My headache and lack of energy could also have been because I didn't eat much yesterday. Jessie made me some food right before bed and woke me up so I could eat it. I think that and some dead to the world sleep made everything better. I had so little energy I could barely get my car unpacked from Laire, I just threw everything into the garage, I'll start laundry tonight when I get home.
Saturday night (yes, while at Laire) I went to dinner at Veggie Heaven in Denville NJ. Everything on their menu is Vegetarian, they do an amazing job of making meat substitutes. I had beef and chicken in a sesame sauce, Amber had some spinach noodles with chicken and mushrooms, Al had a chicken cutlet supreme, Mateo had a seafood dish (don't remember which one) and Adam had sushi and some lo mein. Everything (even the seafood) tasted like what they said it was supposed to be! I've never had a seafood substitute that actually tasted like shrimp, crab, etc.. We will probably be going back there each month, it has a much better selection than Fu's (the place we normally go). It's about a 20 min drive but it's very worth it.
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In other Mets news.. Delgado and Reyes both worked out on Sunday and are looking good, there is still no timetable for their return but they are doing better and should be back sooner rather than later. Maine and Beltran have not been doing as well and they will probably be back later rather than sooner.. They enter the all star break 6.5 games back and will certainly have a up hill battle in the 2nd half, hopefully we can get our players back soon to make the hill a little less steep.
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Tonight me and Jessie are going to a town meeting to support/change the BYOB outdoor serving law. Over the last few years restaurants in Putnam have added outdoor seating. If you serve alcohol you are allowed to serve it on the outdoor patio seating, however if you're BYOB you are not allowed to let anyone on the outdoor patio to drink! The meeting tonight is to change the BYOB law so that they can allow people on the outdoor patio to BYOB.
Saturday Putnam is having it's first River Fire from 7pm till 10pm. Me and Jessie will be there, if you're in the area come on by. Maybe we can do dinner before heading over like we did at the fireworks.
---Thought of the Day
These cookies are magic! They cure sinus infections and cranky moods.. :D
I was going to call this blog First of May but I already have one titled that when I posted the lyrics and video of the song, I went to post it and Blogger yelled at me because it was a repeat name..
---- Here we are on the much anticipated First of May... Unfortunately the weather is not the greatest but it's also not horrible out either, I wish we had the weather from the beginning of the week but at least it's not snowing..
This week has been a series of long nights and little sleep and looking forward it looks like I should be able to sleep in on Sunday.. I'm not complaining about the long nights, I just wish I didn't have to get up so early but I guess that's the working mans curse.
Tuesday night we had a pretty big group for dinner and everyone made lots of food. I really have to find out from Sara how to log into the Tuesday night blog, I know she gave me a username/password but I went to the blog today and I don't see a login button.. Anyway, I made a shrimp & rice dish...
1 lb Shrimp sauteed in the wok with a combination of soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and the hot sauce John got Jessie which is "Pain is good batch 37". (I should really measure amounts when I make stuff, but since I didn't I can't say how much of each I used. I can say I didn't use enough of the hot sauce.) 2 packages of steamed Broccolini 2 cups of rice cooked with sushi seasoning in rice cooker. Mix everything together (including sauce from pan) and serve.
Gwen came this week and brought her son Tim who seems to have gotten along really well with the other kids. Kevin was a no show this week, but Amber made it because she was driving home from Long Island.. We got there really late because I had forgotten to start the rice in the morning and I had to wait around for it to finish. It was really nice out and Lynz brought her dulcimer and Sara broke out her guitar.
---- Wednesday night I went over to Willimantic and me, Lynz and Anja went to dinner at Opus. Opus is a really good restaurant that opened recently, they don't have a website which is a major problem because we were the only people there and Lynz says that's normal for them. I took their card and am going to try and get it over to Mike so he can contact them about getting them setup. I got one of their set dinners which was a cauliflower soup, garlic bread in a fondue cheese sauce, a steamed trout and lemon sorbet. Everything was really good, if you're ever in Willimantic I would recommend checking it out, I know I'll be back.. After dinner me and Lynz finally got a chance to sit and talk which we had not been able to do in a long time. I'm so glad the weather is getting warmer, it's been a long winter of no picnics.
---- Last night I went to see Spring Awakening with Melissa and Gwen in Boston. It was a good play, the music was excellent and it had some very funny stuff as well as some very serious points and moments. I'm trying to figure out what to say without saying too much (don't want to tell the entire plot). I guess I will just say it's a story about a group of kids coming into and finding their sexuality, the play does a good job of showing what mistakes can be avoided if the parents would educate their kids. One example is: Wendla asks her mom where babies come from and her response is that in order to conceive a child a woman must love her husband with all of her heart. Because of this explanation the girl is surprised when she becomes pregnant from having sex.. I was checking it out on Wiki today and I found out that the play was originally done in Germany in 1891 and was banned there due to the sexually explicit scenes.. It re-appeared a few times over the years (sometimes censored) before being turned into a musical in 2006.
Before the play we ate at Remington's of Boston which is right next to the Colonial Theater. Remington's is upstairs and attached to Dick Doherty's Comedy Club. This was the second time I ate there, the first was with Kaitlyn before Ryan Adams. Me and Gwen both had fish and chips and Melissa got the meat ravioli. They have a Sam Adams beer on tap that was made just for sale in the Boston area called Brick Red which is a very smooth Irish Red Ale.
After the play we ended up going back to Gwen's new apartment which is very nice and very secluded but also not really setup yet. For some stupid reason the GPS thinks that the best way to get to 295 from Franklin is to drive to Woonsocket RI and then take side roads almost all the way back to Franklin before getting on 122. My GPS tried to do the same thing today when I was driving here, it appears that the GPSs (mine and Melissas) think that one of the roads over here is a dead end when in truth it's a thru street. My guess is that the road was extended recently and the GPSs don't know about it yet. When I was driving this morning my GPS said I entered a dead end road and that I should turn around.
---Thought of the Day Things really don't change do they? Spring Awakening was written in 1891 and deals with issues around parents not talking to their children honestly. It shows that by parents trying to seclude and shelter kids when it comes to sexuality they do nothing but harm them and damn them to make the same mistakes generation after generation! If generation A makes a mistake because their parents didn't talk to them then why does generation A NOT talk to their kids when the roles are reversed? Do they want them to make the same shitty mistakes? Here we are 118 years later and we are still having the same problem... Come on people, it's about time people learned the right thing to do is to inform your kids! It's really not a joke that information is power! Arm your kids with the power to succeed..
I got back to the hotel and Jessie was in the shower, I joined her to clean up and afterwards we got dressed and hit the big bus tour. The big bus tour is a double decker open air bus, they have one in pretty much every major city and we like to do that tour in each city/country to get the lay of land and some cool history about the area.
So, we grabbed it at Alfred and George right here in Circular Quay. Took it around to Hyde Park and got off so I could get my laundry. The place I dropped my laundry closes at 6pm so we wanted to make sure we got it early, the entire bag of laundry cost me $8 AUS which is less than the hotel would have charged for 1 shirt! We decided we were hungry and hit a pub by the laundry, the pub had Guiness on draft as well as James Squire's Amber Ale. I had two James Squires and Jessie had a Guiness, for food I had fish and chips and Jessie had a BLT which of course was served with back bacon so it was awesome! The best part of the meal was talking to two random people about movies. Craig is a really cool guy who works at Mex Bar which is a restaurant down the road, his flate mate (can't remember her name) works at the pub we were at. He was on his 2 hour lunch break and the four of us ended chatting while we ate.
He mentioned Heath Ledger's first movie which is called Two Hands. It was an Australian movie that was filmed here locally, it may mean that we have to rent it and watch it on my PC since I can change the region on the PC. After lunch we got back on the bus and took it around the rest of the way and are now back in the hotel. Neat things I learned today.. The first ever game of cricket was played at Hyde Park, the Cathedral at St James was never finished because in Australia they had a tax law that only applied to finished buildings so to get of taxes they never "finished" the building..
---- Weekend plan as of now.. Tomorrow - Take the ferry to Manly and go to the beach and probably a steak house. Sunday - Take a train out to the Blue Mountains and check out that area. Depending on when we get back on Sunday we may go to a Poly Meetup in Newtown.
Welcome to my not-so-daily blog.. Lynz just left and I think I'm going to have a nice relaxing day at the house, Jessie is over at Ryan's house and I'm hearing Sam & Max calling to me from my Wii. Before I get to that though let me catch you all up..
Wednesday night me and Jessie had a nice night, it went later than we wanted but it's to be expected I guess. Jessie had yoga and afterwards we went down to Bed Bath and Beyond to get some coffee and Target to check and see if they had Streets and Trips 2009 cheaper then online (they didn't). The plan was to eat at the Thai Place on the way back from BBB and Target but by the time we got back to Putnam they were closed so we ended up getting some food to go from the Courthouse before coming back and watching the weeks American Idols. While at BBB I was speaking with the cashier about our mutual love of iced coffee, here's what we figured out.. Take a travel coffee mug that has space between the outer plastic and the inner metal and fill that space with water so that you can store the mug in the freezer like one of those freezer beer mugs, then make coffee and put it in that and you have instant non-watered down iced coffee. Now I just need to find the perfect coffee mug to make that happen.
Thursday night Kaitlyn came over and hung out with me and Jessie. I made a spicy Chinese style chicken/mushroom/spinach dish over Quinoa and Jessie made a raw cacao/avocado pudding with chili powder in it and fresh raspberries which was amazing especially when combined with the red wine Kaitlyn brought over. After we ate we all snuggled on the couch and watched the Daily Shows from the week and Big Bang Theory before heading to bed. It was very nice to have spent a night together with the two of them. I really hope we can do that more.. Cool side note about Thursday night - I slept without my boot and it didn't cause any pain/problems the next day.
Yesterday after work I went to visit Sara at her grandmother's house. Her grandmother lives in a beautiful condo complex in Bristol RI, on one side of the complex is the Audobon Society and in the back is Narragansett Bay. It was an unusually warm day so we walked down to the water and hung out on the rocks for a bit, while we were walking back her aunt arrived at the house so I went and got lunch while she was there. When she left I came back and we ended up hanging out some more before I headed home. Got home right as Jessie did so we got to hang out for a few minutes while she got everything ready to go out to Ryan's house. Lynz came over around 7:30 and we went out to Engine 6 in Norwich for gluten free pizza, I forgot who told me about that place but I'm glad we heard about it because it was awesome. I will certainly be going back there, they also have gluten free calzones, lasagna and cakes.
---- I updated my relationships on my OKCupid profile to include Sara and Kaitlyn yesterday while at work, apparently Elizabeth saw this and freaked out.. She has now blocked me on OKCupid and asked me to not come to her concert tonight. I don't understand how someone does not get happiness from seeing their friends happy.. /sigh
---- Speaking of relationships.. Robyn, a really cool girl I met at Laire who lives in Virgina, is coming up on Valentine's day weekend to go to a fair with Kevin on Saturday and to hang out with me on Sunday.. I'm very glad of the excuse to get her into this part of the country for the weekend. I land from Australia on Friday night and need to figure out plans for that weekend soon, the biggest trick will be getting quality time with everyone. This is when I could really use Hermione Grainger's Time-Turner.. I would rather have a problem scheduling time with all the people I want to see than not having any people I wanted to see..
---- Speaking of relationships II.. Carrie posted a facebook status the other day saying that Paul (not sure which one, but I assume her husband) was nasty because he had brought his laptop into the bathroom with him, I don't know why that's nasty. The way I look at is most guys read books or magazines while in there to pass the time, what's wrong with bringing your laptop in with you? I do it, what better way to pass time than on the Internet..
---- Speaking of relationships III.. Jessie posted this blog the other day titled "When will I be bored!" which I thought was awesome.
"Cool article - In defense of boredom talks about how technology is somehow attempting to make boredom obsolete and why that isn’t a good idea for us humans.. turns out, just as Kirk said in Star Trek V how we need our pain, we also need those routine periods of time in our lives that give us pause to reflect or use our imagination.. some call this state ‘being bored.’
So what exactly is happening to kill off the boredom? Well, it’s not so much killing it off as finding more micro-boredom escapes. Things like youtube videos or facebook and all its apps fill in snippets of time to get us to the next moment… Our tolerance level becomes less and less for time in which we have nothing to do.
It’s comforting and scary at the same time time that it is in those moments when we aren’t being social or plugged in that makes us who we are, just as much as when we are engaged in those activities. If we aren’t constantly communicating (tweeting, even) our thoughts and feelings out to the world we either feel cutoff or elated and basque in the freedom… Far fewer are the latter I suspect. How many of us smile when we discover we have forgotten our cell phones that day or that our destination for a few hours does not have a wifi connection?
How many steps away from Borg do we become when we reinforce those behaviors and attitudes that boredom and space to become reflective or creative are bad and only productivity and being social are good?"
One of the biggest things for me that has been invented for this purpose is the iPod, think about it. No matter where I am I have music or books or even videos. Taking a long train ride, no problem, just plug in and you can be engrossed in music, a book or TV show in seconds. Some people even put full movies on their iPods. I guess one way I will continue to avoid the "connection" is not get a blackberry.
---- Speaking of relationship IV.. Kaitlyn got tickets for us to go see Ryan Adams and the Cardinals towards the end of February, a few days after she got the tickets Ryan Adams announced that this is his last tour ever because he has balance issues and hearing loss. I had heard a few of his songs in the past without knowing who it was and I got a few CDs from Kaitlyn and have been listening to their newest CD "Cardinology" which is really good. I'm really looking forward to seeing them live but it's a shame that he is not going to continue to do music.
---- I'm going to go, I've let Sam and Max wait to long as it is, you know that Max guy, he can get a bit crazy if you keep him waiting.. Now that I'm not going to Elizabeth's concert tonight I imagine it will be a night of 4400.
---- Great quotes I heard on the Daily Show from this week..
"Why is cheese delicious on Italian food but when you melt it on Chinese food it's disgusting?" - Jason Jones
"I can't imagine someone like Osama Bin Ladin appreciates the joys of Hanukkah." - George W Bush
I really need to get back into blogging more often.. The problem is that I forget some of the finer details the further back I have to go and I liked it when I was using this blog to reflect at the end of the day.
Jessie got home around 6:00 and we (Kris, Amber, Sara, Jessie and myself) headed out to Providence to meet Kevin at Cheesecake Factory for dinner for his birthday. The waiter at Cheesecake Factory was amazing, he was able to spout all kinds of information about any of the cheesecakes and meals and took our table of six order with no pad. I had ahi carpaccio as an appetizer which was holy crap amazing, it's "Thin Slices of Raw Ahi Tuna, Wasabi Pesto, Creamy Avocado and Togarashi Aioli".. For dinner I had pan seared albacore which was also really really good, it's "Fresh Albacore Tuna - Seared Rare with Shallots, Garlic, Red Chiles, Cilantro, Wasabi Pesto and a Spicy Soy-Ginger Sauce. Served with Sauteed Vegetables and Steamed White Rice".. However good the albacore was I probably would have been fine just eating another of the ahi carpaccios for dinner. After dinner we went to Dave & Busters and played some games before heading home and to bed.
Sunday was spent as a lazy day hanging around the house which ended with us all (Kevin, Kris, Amber, Jessie, Sara and myself) going to Empire Buffet and scaring the locals.. We were having a pretty implicit discussion and the people at the table next to us were laughing a lot.
I just got back from watching Obama's inauguration and speech.. What a great speech to start his presidency.. I tried to bring it up on my laptop for CNN Live and got a waiting room screen so I ended up hurrying down to the break room and got there just as they were announcing him.. Speaking of Obama, I ordered the circle logo bumper sticker for my car.. I want to show my support for him during these next 8 years.
So, back to Monday.. I am teaching Invista this week, this is the first time I am teaching this class since I was qualified back in December and the better thing is it's a new version of the class that I hadn't seen yet. So far it's been a great class, I came in on Monday and found that one my old friends from the PSE lab is in my class this week.. I was talking to Sara during the day and decided I would make a flank steak for dinner tonight which of course means I need to fix my oven. If you don't remember I broke the latch lock on the oven on Santamas Eve and have been far to unambitious to actually fix it. I got home yesterday and finally took the top of the oven apart and fixed the latch.
After fixing the oven we did some laundry and got pizza at Pyzzz. The pizza I got was dairy free, I got goat cheese, bacon, olives and green peppers with red sauce. Speaking of pizza, I still really need to bring Lynz and Sara down to Engine 6 in Norwich CT which has gluten free pizza.
Back to Monday.. Me and Jessie got some time to relax alone on the couch and we watched the first two episodes of Scrubs from this season. It was nice to finally have some down time with her, it was a very crazy fast paced weekend so it was nice to just relax at home before ramping everything back up again...
Amber called a little while ago, she is at my house and will be coming to dinner with us tonight before heading back up to school for the semester.
The New York Mets announced that the Brooklyn Cyclones (A ball team) will be changing their name to the Baracklyn Cyclones for a game on June 23rd. They will be wearing red, white and blue uniforms and will be giving out a Barack Obama bobblehead..
While the name change and bobblehead giveaway will be the undisputed highlights of the evening, the club has already announced a wide range of other innovations.
The first 1,000 fans will receive "Universal Health Care" in the form of a complimentary Band-Aid, and -- as part of the team's "Clear-Cut Exit Strategy" -- American flags will be handed out to fans as they leave the ballpark.
Additionally, a "Bi-Partisan Consolation Prize" insures that anyone named "McCain" or "Palin" gets in free, and plumbers with the first name of Joe will receive two free tickets thanks to a "spread-the-wealth special."
I think this is a great idea and think it would be cool if they did the name change for the entire season to celebrate our new president.
---- I've been running Get Data Back on Kaitlyn's hard drive, it dropped ready the other night and I had put it in the freezer for Laire weekend. I started it again on Monday morning and it failed again Tuesday night. I put it in the freezer and decided I would run it in parts so that it does not heat up too much. I ran it in 10 gig chunks last night and managed to get 20 gig before it started to flake out. It's currently back in the freezer and I will run a few more chunks tonight. If you are not familiar with Get Data Back it's a program that scans broken hard drives for any data it can find, it can even find data that had been formatted. As long as the drive can spin it will find something.. Think about that next time you want to delete files off your PC, they say that if you want to really get rid of data you need to format the area 7 times...
---- I recently got the demo of Streets and Trips 2009, it will run for 30 days without activation so I installed it to make sure it worked on my work PC. Streets 2008 never worked because there was a conflict between it and the way EMC has our CISCO security program setup. I have been running 2009 now for a few days and it has been working so I will go buy a real copy soon.
Speaking of CISCO.. The A's are having problems with the city of Fremont, apparently the city feels that if they build a stadium there it will bring in a bad crowd so they don't want to let CISCO build the stadium. They are currently trying to convince the city that they will not bring in a bad crowd by having a stadium. The people in the city are going to vote on it in the next few months. If they deny the stadium CISCO will be looking for alternative locations to put the stadium. I thought they had broken ground on it already, but I guess I was wrong.. So much for it being open for the 2011 season..
---- Yesterday I mentioned I wanted to talk more about dinner on Tuesday.. Well... I made a southwestern tofu/rice dish and it came out a bit too spicy for me plus the idea to make a salsa/sauce out of the veggies didn't work well. The texture was all off and the spice was too much making me not want to eat it. The good news was that Sara made her black bean and sweet potato filling for burritos. We also had ground venison, ground faux beef, faux chicken which I did a great job of spicing, cheese, veggie cheese, guacamole and salsa for the burritos. John brought some of his home made pastrami which was "holy cow" great and Lynz brought some of her amazing cookies.. Kevin made a cheesy shrimp asparagus pasta dish with thai style rice noodles, I think it was his best dish to date, I'm glad I took a Lactaid so I could eat it without causing stomach problems.. So, yeah.. The Lactaid thing has been helping a lot, I am ready to admit (un-happily) that it's dairy that was kicking my ass all this time.. But, as Lynz said, at least there is something I can take to make it so I can still eat dairy. Her food problem (wheat) has no such pill or medicine so I really can't bitch..
After dinner Lynz and Joe started playing SET on the floor. Me, John and Drew were talking over them and started calling out sets so we ended up joining the game. The first hand (when I was standing and talking) I came in 2nd place, the next hand I did much worse. I guess the trick to playing was not focusing too much. Speaking of SET, did you know that there is a Set Daily Puzzle on their website?! After SET John and Lynz left and I played Cro-Magnon with Sara, Kevin, Joe and Drew. Sara won and I came in second, stupid word section is so annoying..
I leave for Australia in two weeks from today so I'm hoping to get as much time with everyone as possible till then.. To that note Lynz is coming over tonight, Kaitlyn is coming over on Friday and I'm going to have lunch with Sara on Saturday.. I guess it's true when they say pimpin' ain't easy, but it sure is worth it though..
First off let me just say in case you don't already know.. I hate snow.. Sure, it looks pretty when it's coming down and it looks pretty to see a great big landscape of pure virgin snow but then I remember I have to go out in it... If it was not bad enough normally because of ass-hats who can't drive and oh by the way, it's fucking cold... Did you know that it can't be warm and snow, hence snow is shitty.. Right, so... Now let's ramp up the "suck" level of this particular snow shall we, I have a very stiff wobbly ankle which is going to make walking in this crap even more of a pain in the ass.. By the way, did I mention how everything closes when it snows? It can rain like a mother fucker and shit don't close, you get some snow and everyone goes into a panic like the world is going to end... Seriously? Is this your first year in New England? No, you were born here, then buck up buddy it's just some fucking snow..
Oh, and just because you own a 4-wheel or all-wheel drive car does not automatically make you invincible, you still to know how to actually drive. I see that problem more in the 4-wheel drive SUV jackasses than the all-wheel drive Subaru/Audi people. I love the attitude of I'm high off the ground and have 4-wheel drive so I must be safe right? NAAHH!! You're safe when you learn how to drive...
Can it be spring now??
---- Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice, we are planning on going to the CT Audubon Solstice celebration tonight and a celebration at the Unitarian Universalists in New London tomorrow.
Today we have (starting at 7:30pm): "Bring back the sun with festivities, folklore, and songs surrounding the shortest day of the year. Feasting, bonfire, and ceremonies representing cultures around the world." in Glastonbury CT which is just south of Hartford right off Rte 91 and Rte 2.
Tomorrow we have (starting at 4:00pm): "We will once again celebrate the turning of the season and the coming of the longest night of the year. We’ll look to the light together as the choir and congregation journey into the dark of Winter, where seeds grow, babies wait, quiet dwells, people rest and anticipate. Then, finding the hope of light, we emerge in nature's cycle with spirits reborn and transformed. Our Winter Solstice is an affirmation of ancient wisdom, through music and storytelling that draws from an eclectic array of Greek mythology, Pagan chants, universal drumming, Native American texts and Western polyphonic singing." in New London CT which is right off 395/95 in Southern CT.
We are also planning on hanging with Sara and Ryan today during the day to do some last minute x-mas shopping.. btw - don't forget to put the "x" back in x-mas. I am so sick and tired of those "Put the Christ back in Christmas" things, read history you ass-hats he never belonged there to begin with... If anything we should just admit that Christmas is a secular holiday based on some fat ass (granted a cool fat ass) who breaks into our houses and leaves us gifts. Maybe they should rename is "Santamass" or "Clausmass"... Blah, or we could just all go back to celebrating the Solstice for the ubber party that it was meant to be (celebrations used to start on the 20th and end sometime on the 24th and 25th). In today's modern age of technology and needing to work imagine how cool it would be if we could all take off a week for Solstice?
---- Yesterday I walked around town a bit, I went to VSC and borrowed a whole bunch of Dream Theater CDs from Dave and then went to Wonderland Books to try and find a Harry Potter CD Wallet with no luck. After that I went to Radio Shack and Savage Systems trying to find a SATA to USB cable which they make now but neither place had one. Funny side note, I found out it existed by finding one on Radio Shack's website but they don't carry it in the store. I ordered one and should have it soon.
Jessie came home early and took a long nap, it's such a hard life staying up to all hours with all her boys... :P
Speaking of her boys... Kevin came over last night and we watched Robin Williams Live on Broadway and Batman Begins before screwing around on the internet/youtube for far too long.
The Robin Williams show was from 2002 and had some really good bits in it. I think my favorite was his bit on cats being like drag queens and marking their territory... You should check it out if you have not seen it.
Batman Begins is the fist Christopher Nolan Batman movie. After seeing Dark Knight I was not disappointed with Batman Begins. I really love the way Christopher Nolan brings the Batman series to the screen. I may need to revisit Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer to be sure of this statement, but... I really think Christian Bale is the best Batman I've ever seen. Keaton was a great Batman but a crappy up-tight Bruce Wayne. Kilmer was a perfect Bruce Wayne, but failed a bit as Batman when compared to Keaton. Bale's addition of the gruff voice as Batman put him on par with Keaton and his goofy antics as Bruce Wayne made him on par with Kilmer. He is the perfect combination of those two actors in his portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Not to mention the camera work was amazing, right up there with something I would expect from Sam Raimi.
Give us a 3rd Batman Mr Nolan... Oh, wait you are... Nice... Eddie Murphy to play the Riddler in the new Batman movie due out in 2010.
---- Oh, speaking of yesterday.. Me and Jessie had this great beer called Weyerbacher Heresy which has a A- rating on beeradvocate. Speaking of beeradvocate, they won't let you rate a beer unless you write 250 characters or more per review. I would really like it if I could just rate it without writing a review.
Updates.. I feel like I've been away from this blog for so long.. So where was I? Wednesday was the last time I blogged, at that time I was laying on the couch in much pain.. Now I'm sitting on the couch in a mostly pain free state. How did I get from there to here? Well..
Wednesday night Jessie brought home some Red Robin for dinner.. Lynz came over Wednesday after John's sword class and slept over so she could drive me to work on Thursday.
Thursday Lynz drove me to work and hid out in a classroom to "work from home". I was planning on leaving around 2:15-2:30 to get to my appointment to remove the stitches. A friend/co-worker was going to cover my class from 2 till the end of the day but he ended up getting laid off in a 1pm meeting! We ended up leaving around 2:40 and got to my appointment late. So.. Cast off.. Padding off.. Gauze off.. Now wait... ... ... ... I was holding my foot up and steady because I was afraid of messing up the tendon by moving my foot while waiting for the doctor to come in and remove the stitches. Ironic (annoying) thing is that when he came in he said I could have and it would not have caused any problems.. eh... Anyway, so after what felt like an hour (was probably more like 10 minutes) the doc came in and removed my stitches, as he removed them it was like a whoopee cushion letting the air out. The 2nd stitch on the inside of the foot was the moment when the massive pain I've felt all week went away! The doc pushed the foot up to where the tendon was fully stretched and then put a new cast on. Funny thing is that he put the cast on with my foot hanging down and bent, when I tried to straighten my leg it was like pulling on a REALLY taught bow/rubber band. I was partially expecting to have to go back in and have it fixed, but the whole point of the thing is to stretch the tendon.. I ended up laying on the couch in the waiting room and having Lynz push my knee down to straighten out my leg.
It still feels very uncomfortable when I straighten my leg out. If I keep it straight it's ok, but if I keep my leg bent for any length of time it pulls again when I straighten it back out.
Last night after the appointment John and Anja came over and joined me, Lynz and Jessie for dinner. We had food from Casa Mariachi in Putnam again, it's the second time I had the veggie burrito and I really love it. I think the tomatillo sauce is really what makes it that good. I'm very glad John came over last night, it was good to see him again after all this time. I was kinda hesitant/nervous about seeing him but it was really good, probably the most comfortable I felt around him since the first weekend they came over.
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Today.. I decided to see how far I could push things.. I put on my boot when I got to class and actually stood (without crutches) at the board, I walked around with the chair/crutches to support me but I put some weight on my right foot with each step. I did that till lunch time (end of lecture) before I decided I had enough and took the boot off and crutched again to the lab and cafeteria. Speaking of pushing it.. When Jessie got home we went to dinner at the Courthouse, I know the Courthouse is not really pushing it but.. I drove! I drove Jessie's car to the Courthouse, tried right foot on both gas and break and I was having issues with the break. I tried my left foot on the break and my right on the gas and that worked much better. I also walked (with crutch support) from the car at the bank parking lot to the courthouse.
Played a set of GH with Jessie and watched Daily Show. Elizabeth is over now and we are going to play a bit before I head to bed.
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Tomorrow is going to be a long day/night. Anja's birthday party is at 11am and Joe's birthday party is at 8pm.
Signing off now to go shred some songs with Elizabeth..
I laid on the couch today and but labels on a bunch of blogs, I'm up to Oct 6th right now.. While I was doing that Jessie watched a bunch of House episodes. After House I watched Throwdown with Bobby Flay, it was the first episode of this season. It was an hour long rematch episode. They had three contestants Bobby had beat come back and challenge him to a throw down, the three had to lead on one dish and help out on the other two. As Bobby was making the final dish another contestant showed up and challenged him to a throwdown rematch. Bobby had beaten him in a "mixology" drink throwdown in the past and I thought it was great that they had him show up in the middle of everything and challenge Bobby. They picked a winner for each dish and an overall winner. Bobby won two and lost two on the dishes but won in the overall challenge.
Now watching the 2nd episode of the season of Throwdown and going to go back to labeling my blogs. The Holiday Dazzle Light Parade was moved to Dec 7th because of weather..
I am either really insane or really awesome depending on how you want to look at it..
Tonight I am going to Rokusan-Tei which is RokusaburoMichiba's restaurant. Michiba was the original Iron Chef Japanese, he had the best percentage of any Iron Chef. He had 32 wins, 5 losses and 1 tie for a 86.5% win ratio. He was also in the most battles of any Iron Chef Japanese with 38 battles over his three years as Iron Chef Japanese.
Tomorrow I am going to La Rochelle which is Hiroyuki Sakai's restaurant. Sakai had the most wins in Iron Chef history with 70 wins, he had 15 losses and 1 tie for a 82.4% winning percentage. As Jessie would like to point out his 70 wins are 3 more than Chen Kenichi, and he was named "King of Iron Chefs" when he beat Chen Kenichi in the final tournament. To end the show they had a final tournament, round 1 was Sakai v. Morimoto and Chen v. Kobe, Chen and Sakai each won round 1 and met in the championship battle. He joined Iron Chef in the second season when original Iron Chef French (YutakaIshinabe) left the show.
Wednesday night I go back to Japanese and this time to KoumeiAriake which is KoumeiNakamura's restaurant. Most people, including myself, think of Nakamura as the short lived Iron Chef Japanese gap between Michiba and Morimoto. Nakamura had 24 wins, 11 losses and 1 tie in his 2 years on the show, his 11 losses are the most of any Japanese Iron Chef and he had the lowest winning percentage out of any Iron Chef. Ironically all the reviews I have read online are saying his restaurant is better than Michiba's, which I will be able to have an opinion on now.
Thursday night I finish off my trip with the "the Prince of Pasta", Iron Chef Masahiko Kobe. Kobe was the only Iron Chef Italian, he joined the show for the last two years and saw 23 battles. He lost his first battle which ironically had pasta as the secret ingredient! That loss must have made him try harder because he is the only Iron Chef to never lose consecutive battles and he never lost another battle against an Italian Chef. His final record was 15 wins, 7 losses and 1 tie.
Iron Chef checklist: (Original Iron Chefs in black, ICA Chefs in blue) -Iron Chef Japanese --RokusaburoMichiba - check --KoumeiNakamura - check --MasaharuMorimoto - check --MasaharuMorimoto - check -Iron Chef Chinese --Chen Kenichi - check -Iron Chef French --YutakaIshinabe - no (*) --Hiroyuki Sakai - check -Iron Chef Italian --Masahiko Kobe - check --Mario Batali - no (BabboRistorante and Lupa in NYC) -Iron Chef Southwestern --Bobby Flay - no (Mesa Grill and Bolo Bar in NYC) -Iron Chef Hellasian --Cat Cora - no (**) -Iron Chef Mediterranean --Michael Symon - check -Iron Chef Austrian/German? --Wolfgang Puck - check (***)
* - He only had 8 battles and left the show because of the "stressful nature of the program", he could not deal with the time limit and hated to be judged on National TV. Does that sound like an Iron Chef to you?
** - She has no restaurants! Oh, and she is apparently the first and only homosexual Iron Chef. She lives in Santa Barbara CA with her partner and two children. Hellasian is her term of her cooking, it's apparently a merging of Greek and Asian.
*** - He was Iron Chef for four episodes and had one battle which he won.
---- I am also planning on going over to the Tokyo Tower tonight after dinner. It's about a mile walk from Rokusan-Tei.
---Diversion of the Day The mother of a 17-year-old girl was concerned that her daughter was having sex. Worried the girl might become pregnant and adversely impact the family's status, she consulted the family doctor. The doctor told her that teenagers today were very willful and any attempt to stop the girl would probably result in rebellion. He then told her to arrange for her daughter to be put on birth control and until then, talk to her and give her a box of condoms. Later that evening, as her daughter was preparing for a date, the woman told her about the situation and handed her a box of condoms. The girl burst out laughing and reached over to hug her mother saying: 'Oh Mom! You don't have to worry about that! I'm dating Susan!'
---Thought of the Day (yes, it's back) If someone adds you as a friend on a site like Facebook or Myspace and you ignore/reject their friend request why would they friend request again two days later?
I called La Rochelle and have a reservation for Tuesday night which was the only night this week they had a table! I thought about it more and decided I really should go to Michiba's restaurant if I can get reservations. I am in Japan having wonderful food everyday (except in Disney), but I really should have a top notch traditional Japanese meal. I thought about that tonight as I sat and ate sashimi in a dive next to the mall I went to.
Yes, the mall was 14 floors!! One whole floor was HMV, I looked in there for way too long and got frustrated not knowing what I should be and not be buying.. They re-released the entire Queen library again last month when Cosmos Rocks came out over here. They also had all the Blind Guardian re-releases and lots and lots of other stuff. Most CDs were about $20. I looked at DVDs and really wished we had a region free DVD player, there are so many great looking movies over here and they are pretty cheap.. $10-$20 per movie.
I also went into a game store and was floored by the amount of Wii games, I was also floored at the price.. $70-$80 per game! Wii Fit is $280!!! Speaking of price, holy crap clothes are expensive here!!! I was really planning to buy a new pair of dress pants and maybe even a jeans/cargo pant since they all fit over here. The Jeans are $300!!! The cheapest cargos are $150, the cheapest dress pants are also in the $150 range. Any good dress pants are $280+!!! I will not be buying clothes here.. Oh, well.. I guess people here are better off ordering clothes from Singapore, I gotta think even with a plane ticket it would be cheaper if you were buying back to school clothes or something.
I also checked out Tokyo's Central Park tonight, it was neat in the fact that it was on the 2nd story, there was actually a street under it with stores, etc.. Very odd..
---- One thing I forgot to mention, today I was wearing my Totoro shirt and when I was at the museum people kept asking me where I got it.. :) If memory serves it was a gift from one of my loving friends so I have no idea where it came from..
---- OK, it's 8:30 and I'm going to start looking at today's pictures. I will try to get some posted tonight.. :)
This morning started out pretty frustrating.. I went to the train station and could not put more money on my card because they only take cash. I went to the Japanese ATM but my card does not work there so I had to walk to the Citibank which is about 6 blocks from the train station. As I was walking to Citibank I stopped at 7-11 and got a surprise rice ball, I went with red this time and was pleasantly surprised by spicy shrimp and onion. I got back just in time to miss the "Ghibli Express" so I had to take a regular JR Chou line. I actually arrived at the museum about 5 mins after they opened so it all worked out in the end.. :)
I guess the best word to sum up the museum is WOW! I understand why they don't want people taking pictures, if you can't take pictures you have to bring your friends back in order to show them awesomeness! It was 3 floors, the roof walk, a movie theater and a restaurant. You are allowed to take pictures outside including on the roof walk so I have a picture of me with the robot from Lupata.
The bottom floor had this amazing room that had figures on wheels that spun, when the wheel spun a strobe light would light and you would see the figures running, it might have been the best thing in terms of sheer impressiveness. They had one of Totoro and one of Laputa. They also had a short film that ran on loop that was the creation/desctuction of the earth, it was pretty neat how it showed the cycle of the earth being created and destroyed just to be created again.. The movie theater was also on the 2nd floor, but I'll come back to that..
The 2nd floor had a mock up of the animation studio and a partner exhibit which changes each year. This year it was Petit Louvre which had paintings from some of the famous French artists. The animation studio had lots of preliminary drawings of characters from all of his movies. It was interesting to see Porco Rosso as more of a pig, less of a pig etc. They also had original artwork of what Totoro might have looked like, I'm glad they didn't use them because he was more ghost like and not so real. They also had books of storyboards from the new movie that just came out in Japan in July of 2008 called Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea and storyboards of Porco Rosso. Between the exhibits on this floor they had cells and a preview of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea which is a movie about Mer-people. A boy finds a baby mer-person and saves it in a cup of water and the adventure begins.. Looks good, can't wait for it to come to America.
The 4th floor had two stores, one of toys, shirts, cups, mugs, dvds, nick nacks and such. The other had books and original manga. Between the two stores they had the giant plush cat bus that kids got to go on and in. It was pretty cool. From this floor there were two exits, one to a spiral staircase that led to the roof and the giant robot. The other exit led to the restaurant where I had mushroom pasta in a creme sauce and a home made ginger ale. The pasta was served on a Totoro plate that they sell in the gift shop.
I spent too much money.. ;) I will just leave that statement right there for now.. :D
So, back to the movie theater. Miyazaki made 4 new films to be shown exclusively at the museum and they rotate them every month. This month's movie started with a boy getting dropped off at school, he drops his bag off and heads into the classroom to find that seven older boys had taken it over and were making a big ship out of the things you would find in a classroom. The little boy tried to help but they told him he was not able to because he couldn't swim and they didn't want him to drown so he went and watched with the younger kids while they finished building it. After they were done building it they went "to shore" to get supplies, while they were gone he hiked up his pants and walked "through the water" to the ship. When he touched the ship which was not fully formed a chair fell off the side and the whole ship looked like school items again. The older boy came back over and "repaired" the damage as water had begun filling up the ship. Anyway, they loaded the ship up and went out exploring the sea. I'm not going to write up the whole story line here but it was very cute and very fun.
Next month's movie is a new story involving May and the Cat Bus.. I did get a little picture book that they made based on that one so at least we can see the story and pics from it.
---- After the museum I came back and went to the Subaru show room by the hotel. They had a new Exiga there which was kinda cool, but they did not have the electric cars on display. Everyone they made is out on the streets..
Plan for the rest of the night? I would bet you would love for me to say put up pictures.. I'm actually going to the office to call La Rochelle to see if they will let me in tonight. If they do I am going there, if not maybe I'll put up pics..
Went to the Western Restaurant for breakfast this morning.. The selection was very limited, I had scrambled eggs, fried potatoes in animal shapes, a croissant, some black tea and some orange juice.. So, after eating the croissant I have to lean towards my gas problem being a wheat thing.. More study will be needed...
Tried to webcam into the Communial Dinner this morning but work apparently is now blocking all web cams.. Next week I'll stay at the hotel longer so I can do that..
Tonight? I have no idea.. I am going to look up options later today while students are in lab. I have to see how far away things are.. It's odd because I want to just pick a train station and explore, but I also really want to eat at Chen's restaurant and I want to check out that Tokyo Tower.. I guess it's good I have plenty of time here so I should be able to do both...
I'm too lame to think of a cool name for this blog, so...
---Comic of the Day Again, I know it's not a comic, perhaps I should rename this "Diversion of the Day"
---Thought of the Day Elizabeth wrote this in a OK Cupid Journal today, I don't know what my answer to that question is, but her question and answer made me think so therefore.. :D
"how do you measure the goodness of a person? In my opinion, you measure it against your past self and no one or nothing else." - Elizabeth Beman
I am heading out to Tokyo tomorrow, or umm I guess tonight? My flight is at 6:45am which means I will have to leave my house at like 3am.. I know right, bitch bitch bitch... :D
Talked to the Mets ticket office today. They are going to offer package plans for next year, they are sending a letter out tomorrow to see if people want to roll their post season money into next years tickets or if they want a refund. They also said it should be no problem to get tickets with other people provided we all call and tell them we want to sit next to each other.
---- I really have not been blogging this week, I've been spending time with everyone here before leaving. Tuesday night was another amazing dinner, I'm sad that I won't be around for the next two. Sara, Jessie and Lynz are going to try and hook up a webcam so I can eat breakfast while they are eating dinner... :) Joe and his son came to dinner this week, I am glad to have the chance to meet them.. Wednesday I went over Lynz's house and made my Cini-Maple Chicken dish with Broccoli and Rice, after dinner we hung out upstairs with Rob and Toni. Glad I got the chance to hang out with them for more than a few passing moments finally.. Thursday night's concert was totally cancelled so me and Lynz hung out at the house and watched Cheers and Midnight Madness, for dinner I made Blueberry Cheese Ham Surprise which was my new invention (the surprise was asparagus).
All in all this was a really awesome week.. See you next week when I'll be eating sushi and eating sushi!
Oh, I don't think I mentioned this - I got my ticket to the Seibu Lions game for Tuesday night. So, Tuesday - Seibu Lions, Friday - Yomiuri Giants, Saturday - Disney Sea, Sunday - Ghibli Museum.. Nothing planned, yet, for the second week..
---Thought of the Day If you are buying someone a really cool gift that's supposed to be a surprise you may not want to register it using their email address.. Good thing that "congrats on the purchase of your new ipod" was mistaken for junk mail.. :D
Is 13 an unlucky number? People are so afraid of 13 that they build buildings with no 13th floor. One thing that always got me was just because you call the 13th floor the 14th floor does not mean it is still not the 13th floor! If someone is deathly allergic to apples and you hand them an apple but call it a pear are they any less likely to die? So, why do people feel better because the 13h floor is called the 14th floor? It's not like they build a 13th floor and just don't put anything on it.
Anyway, I have never looked at 13 as an unlucky number, I don't really think any number is more or less lucky than any other number. Granted I have some "favorite" numbers but those numbers are not "lucky" they are just my favorite numbers and most of those are based on baseball players.. I know, I'm lame sometimes.. But, Baseball is what makes the world spin right?
Wait, wait, wait.. I'm running away from the point here.. So, 13th.. It's a good number, it's just as good as 6 or 7 or even 42. 42? Really? 42 is the answer to life the universe and everything, what the heck is 13? I can't really be saying that 13 is equal to 42 aka "the answer".. I assure you I am..
1995 seems like it was only yesterday.. To put it in perspective Sara was 13 and Lynz was 15 when I started dating Jessie. Other 1995 events: Ebay was founded in September! OJ Simpson was found not guilty of killing his wife on October 3rd! The first ever Calvin and Hobbes comic was published in December! The Braves won their first National League East Division title! Braveheart, Cutthroat Island, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Mallrats, Toy Story and Usual Suspects were all released.
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Gotta get back to packing for Laire.. Sunday night I'm going to see Matt Nathanson with Jessie and Monday is the Faire..
I got my Studio Ghbili ticket! They are mailing it to me.. I got a ticket for Sunday Oct 26th..
Verizon made a deal with NTT Docomo to share their towers which means that my phone will work in Japan. It $1.99 a min for calls and I can recieve text messages for free. Odd thing is that I can't send text messages. Please remember that Tokyo is a major timezone change. If it's 12:57pm here its 1:57am in Tokyo..
Howdy y'all.. Hope all's wonderful in you're neck of the woods.. Yesserdae Jessie, Sara and myself went down the BIG city fer Poly Pride Day.. You know of course when I say BIG city I mean Manhattan, the biggest of big cities? If not, now you do.. :D
We parked in New Haven and took the train in. We got to Central Park just as the were finishing setting up.. The MC for the day was Hedda Lettuce, she was very good and did a great job of keeping the crowd up beat between speakers and performers. They had a really good mix of speakers, music and comedy..
Demi Davis was one of the singers, she is an up and coming singer/song writer, if she ever makes it I would be shocked - her voice was pretty bad but her lyrics are well written, she should write for someone else..
Kelli Dunham is a lesbian comedian, she came up and one of the first things she talked about was how the Polyarmorous NYC sign had their phone number on it and how you would never see that at a gay pride picnic because of all the hate calls they would get.. She then called it and had everyone in the park leave a message.. :D
Sarah Freeman of the Gyronaughts did a hula dance that was really amazing, she had the hula hoop spinning on her shoulder.. It was pretty sweet, I just looked at their myspace page and I now I feel robbed because on the myspace page they have flaming hoops, we didn't get flaming hoops...
Robin Renee is a singer who opened up the picnic with a few songs.. She was probably the best singer at the picnic..
We purchased Peter Benson's book and the latest issue of Loving More. I am adding Alan's Blog to my random links.
---- I left the picnic early so I could get back up to CT/MA to see my friend Bob play in his band Dramaband, me and Lynz met Matt at the bar and we stayed for one set before heading out around 11. Jessie and Sara went to the after party, I'm waiting to read all about that in Sara's blog..
---- Today I am going to go the Willimantic Country Fair that I mentioned in a previous blog and then I am going to head home. Depending on what time Jessie gets home we will see about going to see Religulous. I would imagine if we don't go see it tonight we will probably go see it tomorrow.
As I mentioned in my previous post the Climax Series will be going on in Japan while I am there. The Pacific League series is being held at the Seibu Dome this year. Tickets are currently available for all games. Infield Field Level Reserve tickets are 2,000 Yen which about $18.00!! Field Level Infield Box seats are 10,000 Yen which is about $94.00!!
Field Level Infield Box seats are all sold out for the Pacific League series. So I decide to get Infield Reserve on First Base side.. Went to Seibu Lions website and translated the whole thing to get to the ticket page, translated the ticket page to select my seat, translated the payment page to find where to put name, address, cc information.. Got all the way done and it tells me that my address is invalid! I can't buy the ticket using an address outside of Japan!! I even tried "will call" for shipping method.. ugh!
I just emailed the hotel and asked them if they can buy me a ticket to Tuesday Oct 21st Pacific League Climax Series game. Who knows, maybe they can even get a box seat.. Either that or they will tell me they don't do that sort of thing.. If that's the case I will email a guy from work and ask him if he would do it. I just feel bad asking some guy from work to use is CC to buy me a ticket to a game..
---- The Central League games are held at the Tokyo Dome but don't go on sale till 10am on Oct 13th. If the hotel can get me this ticket then I will email them and ask them to get me a ticket to the Central League too. If they can't I will pester the guy at work again.
---- Watched Mon, Tues and Wednesday's Daily Shows last night.. Jon Stewart is not pulling any punches this week! He went off about congress taking the day off because of the Jewish holiday.. He started cursing about how the Daily Show was still on and he can guarantee that there are more Jews at the Daily Show than in Congress! It was awesome.. He also ripped into a guest he had who was a speech writer about how the candidates always spew shit and why can't they just let us vote on where they stand on the issues.. He slammed Sarah Palin for her stance on Abortion, he slammed McCain for his stance on Abortion and Equal Marriage Rights.. He is just an angry man right now. I guess it's gotta to be frustrating for him, he has been trying to tell everyone what's really going on now for a long time. Although I think people listen to him he has to feel like it's not making a difference because the country is still just as fucked up. Maybe if he stops being subtle about his views he will persuade more people? I also think part of his anger is at his frustration with the Mets folding again.. At least he is doing something good with that anger, he is taking it out on stupid politicians!
---- Watched Boston Legal from this week, it was a very good episode about how the country lets stupid adults vote but does not let informed 17 year olds vote.. That show always proves it really is one of the best shows on TV.. I really hope that ABC realizes their mistake and continues it past this year.. Denny Crane and Alan Shore were on the balcony at the end of the episode talking about how this might be there last year and if it was what would they like to do, how would they like to go out, etc.. Gotta love the writing on that show...
---Thought of the Day "Fifty-one percent of debate watchers say Biden did best job, CNN poll says" What the fuck is wrong with the other 49 percent!!! Can we put them on a boat and send them, I don't know where, just fucking send them somewhere!! This stupid fucking team of McCain and Palin must, I repeat MUST, not be elected to the White House!! What the fuck is wrong with this country that anyone would say anything good about that stupid dumb ass biz-atch!
