Has it really been almost a month since I've posted a blog?! I guess so.. Anyway.. Last week I was in Santa Clara CA, I woke up to my alarm and literally seconds after it went off a co-worker called me to tell me he was also in Santa Clara. I very rarely see him since his main office is in Irvine CA so it was nice that he was in town too, we hung out 3 of the 4 nights I was there. I was feeling crappy and wanted to eat somewhat healthy, first night I had a shrimp, veggie brown rice bowl at the Yard House which was very tasty and mostly healthy. I don't remember what we ate the 2nd night honestly, but it was not very healthy. The third night I told him to meet me after dinner and I went to Good Karma Cafe which is a vegan restaurant in San Jose, after dinner we bar hopped along a street that was closed to traffic, they were showing Princess Bride on a screen setup in the street so they had closed the street to cars. I would say that was the best night I spent in Santa Clara/San Jose but I don't know if I can really say that.. The last day I got out of class early and headed west to the ocean, I drove up and down the mountains through the red woods with the windows down and no cell phone service. I got to Santa Cruz and sat on the beach for about 2 hours before heading to the airport, I felt so much better getting on the flight because of the nature hike. The mountains and red woods of California are NOT to be missed, if you have the means I recommend getting out there to see them. There is nothing like driving up a winding mountain road having to make 180 degree turns around a tree in the road, and when I say tree in the road I don't mean a laying down one but a standing tall enormous tree!
While I was out in CA I got a call from my boss that they needed an emergency change of instructors for this week, end result is I'm here in Pittsburgh this week. Pittsburgh is a very pretty city (nature wise) with lots of hills and forest (not CA redwoods forest, more east coast "normal" forest), it's so cool to see the buildings sticking out among the trees and the roads (even new ones) that wind in and around the hills and trees. The hotel I'm staying at is on Neville Island which is a little strip of land in the middle of the river, the island is pretty lame as it's mostly old industrial buildings but it's nice to be surrounded by water. The view out of my window is of a very "old style" bridge spanning the river, what's better is the hotel has a sitting area along the river with a hammock and fire pit. I went out there last night to sit by fire and look over river and my relaxing experience was ruined by a drunk old guy, he was talking to me and it was clear he was WAY drunk, he apparently bought a case of Bud Light and was trying to finish it off in one sitting.. /sigh
The first night here I went to Primanti Bros, which is a world famous sandwich shop, and got a steak and cheese which came with french fries on the sandwich as well as coleslaw and tomato, it was very good but left me feeling rather fat.. Last night I went to the Double Wide Grill which is an old gas station turned sports bar/restaurant, they have lots of vegan options as well as 65 beers on tap! I had the Meatless Stroganoff which used mushrooms as its "meat" and was OMG tasty! Tonight I went to Hofbrauhaus which is clearly a German restaurant, I had a roasted pork tenderloin in a wine and bacon sauce with bacon strips and a potato dumpling, may not be healthy but MAN was it good!
Work unblocked Hulu and Dailyshow so I've been catching up on TV, I watched the whole season of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution over the last two days which may sound like a lot but it was only 6 episodes. I really think everyone MUST see this, he does an amazing job and it's very eye opening to see how people fight the concept of eating (and serving) good food. If you haven't seen it check it out on Hulu.
Last thing I will mention before turning this blog in is.. Apparently it's not so hard to score 15 runs in a game when you play American League style ball, for all those who say the American League is better just remember that the DH is the reason why you see inflated stats all across the league..
EMC sent out an email this morning saying that they were having issues with the internet blocking mechanism and they apologize for any inconvenience. They are blocking my eRoom which is where I get courseware and updates, they are blocking powerlink (which is their customer portal website), they are blocking Meebo (my IM site), they are blocking MLB, ESPN, CNN, ADP, Facebook, & Bella's and those are just the ones I tried. They are not however blocking Blogspot? OK.. So today's blog is brought to you by luck I suppose.
Last night I went out for the curry club and the Old Manor with a co-worker. For 6 GBP I got a very good Chicken Tikki Masala and Vegetarian Samosas, it came with 2 pieces of nan and some yellow rice. It also came with a free beer! I got the English Bitter again. I was so tired last night after staying up late every night that I ended up crashing in bed around 10. I woke up around 2:30 and had problems falling back asleep so I watched a documentary on TV about British Yogurt sales and how the packaging and marketing evolved over the last 40 years. It was the best thing on.. I didn't watch it all, I watched from the 1960's till the 1990's before I got tired enough to shut it back off and get back to sleep.
I am done with lecture and now waiting for my students to do labs, it's a bit frustrating because they have not even started them, instead they went for a "quick" break before labs about 25 mins ago. I plan to go to London today once they are done and would really like to be sooner rather than later.
That's right, that made no sense and no bearing on anything really.. Just felt like posting it..
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I have not blogged in a while because I really have not had the time to sit down and type stuff up, and when I have I've been dealing with other stuff and junk.. Speaking of which..
I just got my PC fully working again, apparently McAfee had installed an update of Site Advisor and it decided to block most programs that were trying to get out to the web including McAfee updater!? Anyway, after fighting with McAfee Tech Support and then finally fixing it myself (with a co-workers suggestions) I am back up and running, and apparently blogging.. :)
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Now the daunting task of running back through the last two weeks, jeez, it's really been that long.. If you're out there reading I'm sorry for the disappearing act.. Last time I blogged I was teaching in Milford on antibiotics for Lyme's Disease and getting ready for Laire. Stupid antibiotics made me so tired, especially when in the sun.. Laire + Sun Avoiding Antibiotics = Not a good idea.. I played Chatima to boot which means I got to wear a sleeveless shirt and LOTS of sun screen! I actually had a real enjoyable time playing him, got to laze about the camp and just sorta enjoy the weather. I am a bit disappointed I went to bed early on Saturday because I didn't get to see the awesome big battle but, sleep won out in the end so oh well..
.... - Week in DC
Left Laire on Sunday and drove to Mclean, Monday night I went to dinner at Zaytinya with Pam. I got into DC early so I walked over the National Mall and the Washington Monument before circling back to meet at the restaurant. It's a greek mezze restaurant, we got a few dishes and they were all very good but the best one was probably the lamb special dish. After dinner we wandered around the city for a bit and ran into a street corner big band, they were pretty good and surprisingly all dressed in shirts and ties carrying big brass instruments in the heat! Speaking of heat, for dessert we went to Pitango which is a gelato place that uses all grass fed milk.. After dessert we wandered around a bit more before I dropped her at the bus and headed back to Mclean. Tuesday I had dinner at Pam and Christian's house, they made fish tacos and cauliflower which was very good. It was the first time I had met Christian but it felt like I was reconnecting with an old friend instead of meeting someone new. Lots of fun was had just sitting around the kitchen table chatting and telling stories.
Wednesday I went to Gordon Biersch with Josh and Marvin from work.. I got them to use my frequent buyer card for all our bills so I should get some serious points for that.. Thursday I went into the city pretty early and went to the Smithsonian for a bit before heading over to the Folklife Festival, I was a bit disappointed in the festival because they were in "rain mode" which meant everything was either closed or mostly closed. The main concert was supposed to be at 6:30 but they cancelled that because it started thundering. I went to the American Museum which was a thrill a minute, they had such artifacts as Archie Bunker's chair..
Drove home on Friday and once again got stuck in MASSIVE traffic in CT! I'm getting real sick of 95 between Greenwich and New Haven, it used to only be bad around Stamford and New Haven now it seems to be bad the entire way!
.... - Two Weeks Home!?
Saturday I went to Kaitlyn's birthday party, the food was awesome! Her dad made chicken wings which were a-maz-ing... I unfortunately didn't hang out there too long because I was still on the antibiotics and was already getting tired so I didn't want to press the tiredness while attempting to drive home.
Sunday I went to the Mets/Twinkies game with Kevin and Hoyle. It was a good game and the weather was great, the stadium now has Poutine at the fries place.. Oh wait, it's not poutine, it's Disco Fries.. What a stupid name, they would probably do better just calling it Poutine. If you don't know, Poutine is fries with cheese curd, cheese and brown gravy.. I had it for the first (and many) time(s) in Montreal so it was nice to have it again.. But, um.. Should have realized they would American size it! For $10 it was enough food for me and Lynz to be full on.. I ate about half of them and then had a few bites of a pulled pork sammich from Blue Smoke. We sat in our seats till about 3:30 when we moved to section 424 which is where I want my seats to eventually be. They were already in the shade and the view is so much better there. Not that my seats stink but those are better..
Had a nice (but very quick) week at home, Lynz and Anja came over on Monday and we finished up watching Life. Tuesday was dinner. Wednesday I went with Lynz to dinner at Asian Bistro for our do-over anniversary (remember the beginning of this f'n Lyme's Disease started on our actual anniversary).. Thursday.. Thursday.. Something just occurred to me... Feel a tangent, must control it... nooooooo
It's amazing how you communicate with each person in a different way, I would say I talk to Jessie and Lynz at least once every day.. Any re-cap or important conversations however are either done on the phone (Lynz) or in person (Jessie), if I look back in my IM logs for Friday I don't see anything about Thursday.. Then I realized that used to be my fail safe because I would always IM Holly with the re-cap of the day/weekend before.. It's just odd to me that in the entire time I was with Holly I don't think we had one conversation over 10 minutes via the phone but yet we talked almost every day..
Anyway, back to Thursday.. I figured it out (I think).. I remember watching the last episode of Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps, I think that was Thursday.. Then again that could have been over the weekend. I know we watched some Chopped and ICA as well..
Friday night was the Putnam Fireworks, Hoyle came over for that and before hand we went to Bellas for Big Al's BBQ. We got to the fireworks right before they started and somehow still managed to get the best possible spot! We were literary right in front of the shoot off point.
... I'm going to end this blog now because I want to go home.. Will blog more later.. In the meantime, enjoy..
Just finished the final season of Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps the other night. My dad got the DVDs from the UK and me and Jessie have been watching them over the last few months, the show literally jumped the shark in the beginning of season 7 when one of the main characters won a trip to America and died in a shark attack after jumping it.. That season was pretty painful to get through but it redeemed itself in season 8 for a very good finale. One really odd thing is that the final season DVD does not have the final two episodes which apparently aired as a special after the season DVD came out!? Thanks to TV Torrents we now have those two episodes but have yet to watch them.
Onto other shows.. Comedy Central just got the rights to air the old It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which I caught while in Philadelphia last week (ironically), it reminded me how funny that show appears to be so we downloaded season 1 on TV Torrents. I also stumbled upon Junk Yard Wars on Discovery, it's a game show where teams have to build odd devices out of stuff in a junk yard. I only watched one episode so far in which they had to build a off road golf car to hit a soccer ball without human intervention, gotta love building stuff from junk!
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This week has been very tiring, this Lyme's Disease is kicking my ass on a daily basis but it will be over soon.. Wednesday night I went to Tony Luke's to get a Philly Cheese Steak, Tony Luke bought the building across the street from his original cheese steak stand and turned it into a sit down restaurant. It was raining pretty hard (not always sunny in Philadelphia) so we (me and Josh) went inside instead of to the stand. Got an original wiz cheese steak with a side of alfredo pasta and was NOT disappointed, I'd had a Tony Luke's cheese steak at Citizen's Bank Park the other year but it was certainly much better at the restaurant.
Thursday I went out to Matt's house which is about 60 miles from Philadelphia, unfortunately about 40 of those miles is on a two lane road that goes nothing but straight right across NJ, it's a VERY pretty road but the traffic going to the ocean was out of control. My GPS said it would take an hour but it ended up being more like 2 hours 30 mins.. The ride was worth it though. We went to a little crab shack and I got an egg battered tilapia with crab meat on it. When I say crab meat I don't mean the normal bread crumbed crab meat, it was big chunks of naked crab meat! The ride back was great till I hit Philly, the last 20 miles took me over an hour!
Friday was driving home day and I of course I got stuck in major traffic in NYC and CT, had a late dinner and a very quick weekend. Went to Mom's house on Saturday for dinner and to meet her new dog Storm. We made portabella mushrooms on the grill and asparagus with lots of bacon on them. Sunday I went up to Nurit's house for her birthday and played DDR and Dominion, I ended up calling it an early night because I was tired but I had a good time.
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Long drives are always made better with good books, I am currently listening to Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt, it grabbed me right from the beginning and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Time Travel books. Before that I listened to Castle in the Air by Dianna Wynne Jones, it is the 3rd book in the Howl's Moving Castle world. Her books are very fun and good for all ages. You know, I just said it was the 3rd book but apparently I (and audible.com) are wrong, it is actually the 2nd book in terms of publish order but the 3rd in terms of reading order.. I guess that counts of 3rd right? Anyway, I think I'm going to grab some of her other books in the months to come.
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Last thing I want to mention, Vote Wright! David Wright is in 2nd place for 3B in the all-star game voting. Got to MLB.com and vote, you can vote 25 times per email address. If you have 2 email address you should vote 50 times!
Last Friday was travel day.. I got home right before 6 and spent the night relaxing and catching up on the TV.. South Park has been great the last few episodes, saw the Facebook one and the two part 200th episode and all three were very funny! If you don't normally watch it I recommend grabbing those on Hulu.
We also caught on the Daily Show and his reaction to South Park was perfect, it's a good thing he is a "comedy show" and can get away with what he does under that guise..
Saturday we went to Armsby Abby and then to the Heavy Metal Festival in Worcester to see Eluviette, they only played for about 30 mins but it was worth it. It was amazing to see how many people were actually there just to see them, we arrived while they were setting up the stage and all the people around us had done the same. When we were leaving so were others and they were also only there to see them.. I think it's time for a Folk Metal Festival in Worcester!
The night was far from over, we went over to Lynz and John's house for Cheese Fire and hung out for a while.. It was a very good time, I expected it to be fun but was actually surprised at how much so.. :D
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Sunday, rainy Sunday... Went to the Mets game for a bit on Sunday before driving down to Mclean. It was cold and rainy and I didn't stay very long, the game got suspended shortly after I left and finally cancelled because of the rain. The entire ride to Mclean was massive rain, so much so that I had to use my wipers on full blast..
Got in around 1:30 and stayed up chatting with dad for a bit while he drove home from NY.
Monday night I was in the mood for Buffalo Chicken so I went to local sports bar here called Chicks n' Wings, the service was so slow I almost left before ordering. I'm glad I stayed because the food was actually very good once I got. Found out that the manager only scheduled one girl to work, normally Mondays are slow, but not during the hockey playoffs.. Way to plan...
Wednesday night I finally watched all of Something Something Darkside.. If you have not seen it yet I do recommend it. At first I was pissed that they chose to release it right to DVD/BluRay but after watching it I realize they could probably never air it on TV, especially on broadcast TV. Leah to Han before carbon freezing "I love you", response "fuck off".. Emperor to Vader talking about Luke "I want you to turn him", response "Well, turn him? That might be tricky. I might be able to make him go bi, but all the way?" Now that I've watched it fully I want to watch it again with the "pop-up facts" turned on. Watching for the first time with those I felt was distracting.
Yesterday Lynz found out that Cafemantic, a coffee house in Willimantic, was starting to do Trad Sessions on Thursday nights. We decided instead of bowling to go there.. I got there a little late and found Lynz happily sitting on the stage playing her fiddle.. It was very cool to see and hear her playing up there with everyone but it was also very odd to be at a Trad Session without beer.. I had some really good green tea and a turkey panini but.. The coffee house is across the street from Willi Brew Pub, maybe next time I will bring my "water bottle" in with me and go get it refilled across the street.. :D
Shane is coming over tonight and tomorrow is Future Imperfect's one day event. Should be a great time..
This may be a long blog because I actually have things to say I just haven't taken the time to write them down..
I am in Symmetrix Installation and Maintenance class this week.. Why you ask? I am branching my knowledge back up an old branch.. I will be adding Symm classes to my repertoire of classes I teach, should not take much ramp up time since I worked on that product for 5 years before becoming a SAN instructor.. Being in the class is pretty boring because it's amazing how little I forgot.. :)
So bored at work means time to blog..
My dad got a hold of the Sunday ticket plan games for 2010 so I spent this morning looking over games and which ones conflict with other plans. One thing I realized is that I set my Disney Vacation for the beginning of the playoffs, will that matter? Depends on how good the Mets do this year.. It would be bitter sweet if they made the playoffs and I was in Disney for it but I will take my chances.. :)
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I've read some very good books lately and wanted to mention one that really stood out above the rest.. Paul Levinson's Plot to Save Socrates.. I don't want to say too much because I do recommend you read it if you like time travel and especially if you have a keen like of Ancient Greece.. Here is a cut and paste of the Wiki article on it..
The Plot To Save Socrates deals primarily with the concept of time travel, and while the novel rarely discusses time travel directly, it poses several questions about its validity and possibility (or lack thereof). The story begins in Athens Greece in 2042 with the main character, Sierra Waters, thinking to herself, at which point the rest of the story begins as a flashback (both in her head and in the sense that the characters constantly flash in and out of historic eras). Sierra Waters, a graduate student, receives a copy of a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates is being offered an escape from his death sentence in ancient Athens by a person (named Andros) offering to take him into the future and leave a clone behind. The document appears to be genuine, and this takes Sierra onto a path that leads her to a time traveling adventure of her own. On her path she meets up with the great historic inventor Heron of Alexandria but soon realizes that Heron is a suspicious character himself. The story tangles itself a bit as more and more characters appear to be intertwined with each other and on occasion even the same person at different points in life. However, the novel ultimately untangles itself, somewhat satisfying the plot's plausibility although leaving unanswered any deeper metaphysical qualms the reader might have. The story also involves Plato, Alcibiades, publisher William Henry Appleton, as well as several fictional characters. There are scenes across time, placed in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Victorian New York City, and Roman London.
Another book that I would recommend is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. If you've seen Miyazaki's movie by the same name you will not be disappointed by this read nor by the movie after reading it. Obviously the movie has alot of things missing and some differences but Miyazaki did a great job of presenting the book in movie form.
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Back to the 20th.. The last time I wrote a blog I was getting ready to go meet Amy and Mitch for dinner. The drive down to their house really sucked, there was an accident a mile away from their exit so the 20 mile ride took me about 90 mins! I got there and we hung our for a bit before we went to Daks, a local non-chain restaurant, for dinner. Dinner was good but the place was crazy cold, Mitch found a space heater tucked behind one of the tables so we pulled it out and turned it on under our table which made it much better. After dinner we went to Baskin' Robbins near Daks and ended up leaving because they had an un-open container of chocolate peanut butter but would not open it!? The guy looked at me and said "we don't have that flavor tonight", I said "but it's right there", and he said "yeah, but it's not open"... wtf?! We drove down the road about 5 mins to another Baskin' Robbins and they had the correct ice cream so we got some.. :) It was so nice to be able to spend time with Amy and Mitch and I'm looking forward to my next trip to the DC area in April so we can hang out more. Hopefully next time she will be in better condition so we can enjoy more active activities, she had recently gotten into a bad car accident and could barely get in and out of the car because of pain..
Speaking of people I miss hanging out with.. Kaitlyn came over on the 24th and we went to the Willi Brew Pub with Lynz and Jessie. We had some good food and some good beer (as expected at the Brew Pub).. After dinner me, Kaitlyn and Jessie played some Guitar Hero.. Kaitlyn played drums and a great time was had by all..
Janine and I had planned to watch Wicked on DVD, we finally scheduled it for the 25th.. Idea, me and Jessie would go to Hoyle and Janine's house for dinner and afterwards watch Wicked.. Fail in the plan, I can't find my Wicked DVD.. Anyone have it? I know I lent it to someone but don't remember who.. Well, after spending way to much time looking for the stupid DVD me and Jessie headed over. After dinner we ended up watching Inglorious Bastards which I really liked. It was very long (153 mins) but it kept my interest throughout, Jessie was not as impressed. The only thing I would have liked was more on screen time of the Inglorious Bastards..
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Me and Jessie went to the Laire Awards ceremony this Saturday. They always have it at Dave and Busters in West Nyack NY, the last time we went the food was just "eh", this time the food was actually quite good. The Order won best group which gives us one free ward a month.
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The final episode of Dollhouse aired on Friday night. It did a good job of ending the series but I really wish it was longer, the episode seemed to be on the verge of fast forward and I think they could have done alot more with it. Hopefully the DVD set will have a longer version of the final episode. I remember reading somewhere that the final episode was going to be 2 hours but it was only 1 so who knows. Maybe my source was bad, maybe the cut an hour out for broadcast. I hope the 2nd one is true.
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When I started this blog I think I had more to say but now I don't remember what it was.. I should have made an outline before I started but oh well.. Perhaps I will remember more later and write about in another blog..
I just found out that there is a sequel being written for Plot to Save Socrates. It's called Unburning Alexandria, no listed release date but something to watch for.
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Dimension Jump XVI is being held in London on July 23rd-25th. When that schedule is being written I'm going to ask my boss if he can send me to London that week.. Dimension Jump is a Red Dwarf convention, the rumor is they are going to show episode 1 of series 10.
Last night Robyn came over, when she got there we decided to grab some food. Not know what was around I asked the guy at the front desk of the hotel, he recommended Shamshiry Chelo Kabob which is a Traditional Persian Cuisine restaurant a block away from the hotel. Having never tried Persian food we decided to give it a shot.
The food was excellent but the menu was all the entertainment we needed for the night, well almost.. Here are some actual menu item descriptions:
Salad Shirazi $ 2.99
There is an Old Persian saying that it takes four people to prepare a salad: A generous man to add the oil, a stingy man to add the vinegar, a wise man to give the right touch of salt and pepper, and a fool to mix it well. Diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, and seasoning provides a pleasant combination to prepare you for your dining experience.
Panir Sabzi $3.25
Panir or goat’s cheese is an extremely delicious cheese, which the Persians habitually eat. If you walk down the avenue in Tehran during lunch hour, you will find the mason, and cobbler, the shopkeeper – everybody – eating bread and cheese. Very often Persians eat Panir with raw vegetables and herbs (radishes, basil, scallions, tarragon, or fresh mint). It pleases the palate.
Torshi Bademjan $ 3.99
The Persian homemaker takes pride in the quality and variety of the pickles kept in the pantry. This appetizer of eggplant, parsley, garlic, mint, cilantro, vinegar, salt, spices, and black caraway in uniquely Persian and extremely palatable.
Shirin Polo $ 4.99
This is one of the most excitingly different, unusual, and demanding of the Persian rice dishes. But it is also one of the most rewarding. The sweet rice is seasoned with spices, perfumed with sugared orange peel, and made crunchy with pistachios and almonds. It tastes as if imaginative honeybees created it.
Baghali Polo $ 4.99
This fragrant and devastatingly delicious dish is made with dill, a most delicate herb. Persians have favored dill for many years and use it in many dishes. One of the more famous and extremely tasteful dishes is Baghali Polo, where dill is used in combination with rice and soft good tasting fava beans. It’s a treat you will want to share.
Chelo Kabob Kubideh $ 9.55
Kabob is the Persian word for meat or fowl cooked over a charcoal fire. There delicious strips of charcoal broiled ground meat are served with a snowy mound of rice topped with saffron. All the beef dishes achieve greatness when you add a raw egg yolk on the side, which you rapidly pour into the hot rice, continuing to toss it so that the egg coats all the grains as the heat cooks it. Stir in as much butter as you dare, and sprinkle in the brown powdered sumac that’s in a shaker on the table. It’s tart spiciness is irresistible.
Chicken Kabob $ 9.55
Chicken kabob is made with breast meat that has been marinated in a special recipe. Persians serve chicken for the same occasions that Americans serve turkey. If the Persian homemaker has a guest, she will almost always serve some form of chicken. This is special. The chicken, served with rice in a snowy mound, will give your meal a whole new meaning.
Persian Ice Cream $ 3.99
Persian saffron ice cream, tinted a golden pink will remind you of midsummer. It is fragrant with rose water and as richly chewy as the most eggy creamy ice cream aspires to be. You can order it alone, or with Paludeh.
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As promised here is your update blog.. Or a bit of one anyway..
Jan 6th - Lynz and Anja came over and I made chicken cutlets with gluten free bread crumbs. I added honey to the egg and it came out nice, next time I'm going to add some X-O Hot Bean Paste and see where that goes.. After dinner we watched all of the Simon's Cat videos on Youtube, if you have not seen those yet I recommend them.
Jan 10th - Went to Steve's house for a board game day, it's been a long time since I went down there so it was nice to do that for a change. We played Redneck Life which was an ok version of Life, the spin on it was that you started with $0 and everything you bought put you further in debt and you could gain and drop kids quite often. It was funny at times but overall it was not spectacular. What was (and is) spectacular is Dominion. Randy brought that and we played a few hands of it before the night was up.
Jan 11th - Made a buffalo, sausage, veggies and rice dish for dinner. I was going to put in corn and mushrooms, Jessie recommended Okra so I added that too. While cooking I realized the mushrooms were bad so I added a veggie mix instead. After dinner we played Dominion and listened to some music..
Jan 12th - Make it a Dominion week? I brought it over to Tuesday dinner and played a few hands after dinner.. What a great game.. :)
Jan 13th - Dad came over for dinner and to rescan all the DVDs for sale. I made my homemade teriyaki sauce and cooked it on a pork tenderloin. After dinner we watched a few episodes of "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" which is a show from the BBC. It's very funny and reminds me a lot of "Coupling".
Jan 14th - No really, make it a Dominion week! Lynz came over and I made a swordfish steak with the leftover teriyaki sauce. After dinner we played Dominion and listened to music..
Speaking of Dominion, I ordered the "online only" cards from eBay and got them on Friday.
The weekend was Laire and I have to say that I'm finally back to full Laire ability. I did some serious ass kicking, I was swinging so much on Saturday my arm felt like it was going to fall off. In all my years of playing I don't think I've ever felt so swarmed as I did on the Saturday mod. The waves of undead were staggering, the only thing I could see was Lascula (we were fighting so close we were touching for most of the battle) and walls and walls of undead. If not for the Double Power Fortitudes I'm sure we all would have dropped in the first encounter of the mod. As it was we didn't make it all the way through the mod but it was a success (sorta) as we survived. I stayed till the end of the event and was exhausted driving home. I woke up on Monday morning to stagger my way to the airport and the beginning of yesterday's blog..
btw - I love Blogspot's auto save feature! I accidentally clicked on a link to get you the diversion of the day and closed this window. I went back and the whole blog is still in tact!
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Meant to put this into the other day's blog.. The Mets called me on Sunday morning, unfortunately they insisted on calling my home number and not my cell phone even though my cell is listed as the primary number. Since they called home I didn't get it till I got back from Laire. I called them Monday morning before getting on the flight and got assigned seats. I don't know if I would have gotten better seats if I had talked to them on Sunday but I moved from 433 to 430. The eventual goal is to get into section 424 but I guess a little closer is still better. We are in Row 3 and have an aisle seat. I could have taken Row 1 but I would not have gotten an aisle in Row 1.
When Dollhouse first aired me, Jessie, Ryan and Sara watched the first episode. I remember really liking it and we added to the season pass of our TiVo but that was on our old TiVo before it died. During the TiVo replacement process we decided not to deal with copying off Dollhouse because we figured we could just watch it on DVD when it came out. So.. Fast forward a bit.. Dad got Dollhouse on BlueRay and a few months ago got us an awesome BlueRay player. When we got the player we borrowed Dollhouse Season 1 and it sat in a pile, we never watched it because it seemed like so much to watch and we never have the time..
We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house again this year. I made a lime chili tilapia with acorn squash and Jessie made her raw pasta sauce. Towards the end of the night Jessie started to feel strep like conditions, when we got up Christmas Day we were in no hurry to run over to my brother's house because we were both now feeling sick and even debated going to the emergency room because urgent care was closed on Christmas Day..
What do you do in the winter when it's cold outside? Stay inside... Add to that not feeling good equals LOTS of staying inside and lots of TV. We caught up on all of our shows (Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Iron Chef America, Chopped and Monk) and went into the BlueRay pile.. First - My Name is Bruce which was a crazy silly Bruce Campbell movie, it was pretty funny but the movie was overshadowed by the theme song! (see diversion of the day)..
Speaking of Monk.. Wait, were we? Sure... Why not... Anyway, Monk.. We watched the last nine episodes over the last few days, if you ever liked that show I recommend watching at least the final few episodes. It could have been one of the best series finals of all time.. I was not a big fan of last season, but this season (especially the last few episodes) really made the entire show. You will be missed Mr. Monk... Thanks go out to Tony Shalhoub for brightening our lives for the last eight years!
Back to the Dollhouse.. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now Dollhouse, all on my list of all time best TV shows.. Joss Whedon has created four very distinct and very great shows. The only annoying thing about Dollhouse is that we now have to wait to watch the final few episodes in real time. There are three episodes left to the series. Low ratings and an odd concept led to a very early cancellation, at least this time he has gotten the chance to wrap up the storyline unlike Firefly.
It snowed Sunday like a bitch... Well, Saturday evening into Sunday.. We got at least a foot or two.. Welcome back, right?
I have not blogged in a while because I didn't have internet on my PC for the ride home and as you know it can get away pretty quick.. I just got home from Tuesday dinner and am watching ICA while Jessie makes food for her luncheon tomorrow. Gwen made a turkey today and it came out really good, I don't normally like turkey but I enjoyed it quite a bit tonight. Joe brought Setcube which is the game of Set in a Scrabble type setting and Kevin brought Monty Python Flux so it was a fun night filled with fun games.. :)
So, back to my last blog... When last I wrote I was getting ready to leave for Animal Kingdom. I was happy to see that they added quite a bit to Animal Kingdom since the last time I was there, the safari was better than I remember and they opened Everest (a roller coaster) as well as the completed Dinosaur play area. Speaking of the safari.. I was getting on the ride and the guy on the platform looked familiar, I looked closer and realized it was a friend of mine I hadn't seen in years! When I worked for Lechters I met Justin who had at the time recently moved to the North East after working for Disney. We both left Lechters for Natural Surroundings and from there we both went to Best Buy. He left Best Buy and last I heard had moved out to the middle of the country so it was pretty crazy to see him working back at Disney! I hung out with him for a few minutes on his lunch break, we were going to hang out that night but he ended up having too much school work to do. Instead I ended up at Downtown Disney, Disney Quest and Pleasure Island.
Disney Quest was pretty lame for a single player, most of the games are at least two players if not four players so there was not too much to do by myself. Disney is in the process of changing over Pleasure Island to a sorta restaurant row. All of the old clubs are closed and they are starting to open up some new restaurants, I ate at one of them (forgot the name now, but it was the South American restaurant) which was really good. I got a skirt steak and sat outside on the water listening to live music, Downtown Disney is across the lake from Saratoga Springs and they had the Tree Houses lit up so you could see them across the lake.
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When I arrived at Disney I saw a advertisement on the table in the hotel room for 40%-45% off your next trip provided that trip is booked while your currently in Disney and as long as you come again during 2010, well since me and Jessie are planning to go in Oct of 2010 I called the number and booked our trip. You actually had to call from the room which makes sense. I set up a week in a Fort Wilderness Cabin, if you set it up online it's almost $3,000 and by setting it up while there I ended up paying $1,500!
Monday me and dad went over to Epcot and finished up the Kim Possible missions that were available. Uncle Larry, Tina and Cameron came over and met us but we didn't stay long as we had dinner reservations over at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom. Cinderella's Round Table was an interesting experience, I guess I did once before when I was younger but I don't remember it. I was expecting the food to be somewhat generic because I figured you were paying for meeting Cinderella and sitting in the castle but the food ended up being real good. I had a salmon crab cake for an appetizer which was probably the star of the meal.
I woke up early Tuesday and headed out. I probably would have done better waking up later because I got stuck in real bad rush hour traffic in Orlando. Once out of Orlando it was mostly smooth sailing to get to North Carolina. This time I went to Keith and Beckie's house and Beckie made dinner. Rich came over but Harry and Nicole did not because Harry had the bronchitis.. Beckie made Taco Pie which was croissant dough in a baking pan with ground turkey, cheese, chips and spices, it was very good and I think I will try to recreate it for one of the Tuesday dinners. Speaking of great, she made a salsa which was so good I actually had her print me the recipe. I always enjoy hanging out with Keith, Beckie and Rich and it was nice to see them again.
Wednesday I drove from North Carolina to Virginia. Hung out with Robyn for lunch before heading over to Amy and Mitch's condo. I probably have not seen Mitch in five years and it was very fun to see him again, I was surprised at how young he still looks. I saw Amy earlier in the year but it's always awesome to see her, we had a great night doing nothing but playing cards, talking and listening to music.
Thursday was a LONG day on the road! I went shopping with Amy in morning before leaving which was the best part of the day. Got stuck in DC traffic, missed my exit in Delaware and ended up driving about 40 mins out of the way up 95. Got stuck in accident traffic in both Trenton NJ and crossing the bridge into Staten Island. By the time I finally got to Amber and Kris's apartment we had just enough time to eat before they left for a midnight showing of Avatar.
Friday I got up early and grabbed the Ferry from Long Island to Bridgeport CT. Friday ended up being a pretty great first day home. I met Holly for lunch and Lynz on her way home from work/doctors's appointment before finally getting home to see Jessie. I wanted to get home before Jessie but traffic nailed me again, this time on 395, so I got home a bit after her. Hung out with Jessie for a bit before meeting Lynz at a Barnacle concert in Johnston RI. Barnacle is a good band and the percussion guy was amazing, he had a set of bones in each hand and was playing two different percussion lines! If that was not amazing enough he grabbed a shaker in each hand and had that going while still playing the two bones.. Enough already? Nope.. He grabbed a tambourine and dropped it on the floor and started playing it with his foot!!!
Saturday, Sunday and Monday was a whole lot of cleaning and catching up on TV. Monday night I went out Christmas shopping with Lynz and Anja. Today I finished cleaning and wrapped all my presents. I came up with this great idea to make the boys (Tim and Rowan) boffer daggers, I could find any CPVC or pipe foam so I ended up ripping apart my old staff to make them daggers. I did the entire project (ripped apart old staff and made two daggers) in less than one hour!
Long time no blog.. I have been having some issues with my work laptop over the last few weeks, it started when I got home from Duluth. Apparently I got some sort of virus while using the in flight wi-fi. The laptop was running real slow all of a sudden and I went into the services running and saw two CTFMON.exe, I ended them both and ran a scan which found nothing.. I ended up having to run a FULL virus scan (including looking inside all zip files) before it finally found a SpyWare. Ok, lesson learned, is it really that important to have internet on the flight? I don't think so, and if I do that again in the future I will be jacking my security settings before hand.
Spyware - gone.. PC back to normal for a day or two before it just locks up, wtf!! I go to move mouse, bring up task manager, anything and realize that the laptop is REAL hot.. I turn it off and feel bottom which could probably cook an egg.. Turn it back on and it runs.. I was in the airport on the way to Brazil when this happened the first time so not much I can do.. Get to Brazil and find out the IT guy there will not take my laptop apart but suggests I wait till I get back to corporate, in the meantime I grab a little metal frame which will hold the laptop up and make it not overheat as much. Get back to corporate and after a day of fighting with India and our IT group I finally get a local IT guy who cleans out the fans which had collected MASSIVE dust bunnies.
Overheating - gone.. So, you know how when things run hot it can have adverse effects on the long term life of your parts? Well, although the laptop has no more dust bunnies it still is overheating? Bad mother board? Probably, I have an appointment with IT to bring it on Monday because of the holiday weekend. What to do in the meantime? My friend happens to have an extra Dell D630 which he brings over and we swap the hard drive..
Overheating II - gone.. Now to relax and resume normal PC operation.. Not so fast, overheating PC = crashed operating system.. Hard booting crashed operating system = corrupt files! My laptop is going to need to be re-imaged because anytime I load things like Chrome, Java, Flash the PC hangs. Not that overheating kind of hang, but the operating system dying kind of hang. Well, I uninstall Chrome and re-install to try and fix the issue.. Now it only does it when I close Chrome.. Switch to IE.. Same problem.. Ugh.. Back to re-image idea.. Well, as you may or may not know I've been wanting to replace my work laptop with a lighter smaller netbook. As it turns out Radio Shack has the Acer Netbook I want on sale for $250 on Black Friday.. 5am journey to the store yields favorable results amid the crazy shoppers..
So, I wake up on Black Friday at 5am, throw some clothes on and head over to the Shack.. They open at 5:30 and can't really be that busy right? I know it's Black Friday, but they are Radio Shack not Walmart. Speaking of Walmart, I drove by them and found their parking lot and all the nearby parking lots filled! On to Radio Shack, I got there around 5:15 and there was a pretty decent sized mob hovering around the door. By the time the store opened I would say there were just under 50 people waiting, they were shaking the doors and yelling for the Shack employees to let them in early.. When the doors were finally opened at 5:30 much pushing and shoving ensued, luckily for me I was standing near some big dudes and followed them as they pushed their way through. This little maneuver made me the 2nd person to the counter and the 2nd person to get a Netbook. They only had three which I knew going into it so I feel pretty lucky..
One of the deciding factors to me buying this Netbook was that, although it came with Vista, it got a free upgrade to Windows 7. So, first thing I do is go to Acer's website and register for my free upgrade only to find out that this netbook is NOT eligible for the upgrade! I call Acer customer service who informs me that:
1 - the website does indeed say the AO751h is eligible for the upgrade but only if
2 - the netbook came pre-loaded with Vista Home Premium and that
3 - this netbook came with Vista Home Basic and therefore
4 - it is not eligible
Odd, ok.. Do any of the AO751h configurations come with Vista Home Premium? No! That is not a valid operating system choice for this netbook! What are your valid choices you ask? XP Home and Vista Home Basic. You really have to love false advertising! Oh, and even if it was eligible for the upgrade I found out that I would have gotten Windows 7 Starter which is not even a full version of Windows 7!
Well, there are some amazing deals on Windows 7 right now, you can get Home Premium for $29.99 if you're a student or an educator at a university. The only thing you need is a .edu email address.. If you have a .edu look it up because I can't imagine you will get a better deal.. Oh, well, maybe.. Worcester State College is selling Windows 7 Professional for $39.99! Speaking of .edu, I really think EMC should have .edu email addresses for people who work in education. The Microsoft deal will work for both students and teachers but I can't prove I'm a teacher.. Either a .edu or some form of EMCU ID, I'll be bringing this up next time I'm at work.
Next time I'll be at work will be Dec 23rd.. I have an ass-ton of vacation left for the year so I am (as of last Wednesday) on vacation. I'll be heading down to Florida in a few days (probably leaving on Thursday) and will return around the 19th. I do actually return to work on Dec 21st but I will be teaching a TTT via Centra at 5am on the 21st and 22nd so I won't be going into the office.
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So, short story long is I'm typing this blog on my brand new Acer Netbook which is at the moment running Vista but will be upgraded to Windows 7 later today.
Anything else happen? Well.. Last I blogged I was heading out to the Galeria and to meet Luana. The Galeria was indeed open when I got there and pretty crowded since everyone was getting off early on Thursday for the long weekend (Friday was a holiday in Brazil). I wondered around the mall for a few hours and was a bit disappointed honestly, the last time I was in Sao Paulo the mall seemed to have more diversity.. What I mean by that is, more stuff from more bands.. This time it seemed that most stores had the same stuff, if not the same stuff it was different stuff for the same bands. Not only did they all seem to have the same bands, but those bands were almost all American bands, they didn't even have any Tuatha De Dannan shirts or dvds this time. I was really hoping for a bootleg concert DVD of theirs and I was trying to find Jessie one of their shirts. Another disappointing thing was the prices.. You may remember that KISS recently released a WalMart exclusive CD (Sonic Boom), they had that CD for over $100! Yes, I mean the "$" sign not the "R$".
After a few hours there I walked over to Augusta St to meet Luana. We meet and went to get some food, I was wanting something healthy since I had not eaten much greens since I was in Brazil so we went to a mall that was up the street. The mall was just like an American mall and we went up into the food court which had things like Subway and Starbucks. She suggested one place which had really good salads and I got a salad/steak combo meal, the steak was ok but the salad was indeed really good. After dinner we walked down to the club she had to do sound check at and after I walked her to the subway before catching a taxi back to the hotel. She is a very nice girl and it's a shame we didn't have more of an opportunity to hang out..
Brazil taxes imports up to 70% depending on the item. They do this to encourage people to buy Brazilian which I guess I understand, but why tax imports when there is no Brazilian counterpart? To make the rich richer right? Only reason I can think of..
Friday I checked out and went to work to hang out with Paulo a bit, we went to a mall for lunch because it was the only thing nearby that was open. We ended up eating at a sushi restaurant which is always a good thing.. It was very good sushi and I was amazed that everyone there, even the little kids, were using chopsticks! I guess it's really just North Americans that can't figure out how to use chopsticks.. After lunch we went to a few stores and looked at TVs, laptops and DVD/Blue Ray discs. I am amazed at how much electronics in general cost in Brazil and I really think they need to relax that stupid import tax on things like TVs and computers. US and Japanese car companies build cars in Brazil and are still taxed with the import tax because they are not Brazilian companies.. I was sorta surprised that some of the mall stores were cheaper than the galeria on heavy metal CDs & DVDs, and I'm not talking a little cheaper either. Paulo convinced me to buy City of Gods on DVD, I have not watched it yet but he says it's quite possibly the best movie ever made in Brazil.
After lunch Paulo took a few calls and then had to leave for a few sites. I hung out a bit more at work and then left for the airport. They say you want to get to the airport early right, well not too early in Brazil.. I arrived around 7pm for my 11pm flight and found out the Continental ticket counter was still closed, there was a big line waiting, I asked the lady where the "elite" line was and was pointed to a MUCH smaller line. In line I met a really cool guy from PA, we ended up chatting for a long time and after we finally got through security we went and got some food together. Turns out he was on the same flight, and not only the same flight but the same row of seats! Certainly made the trip back more enjoyable.
Speaking of enjoyable, I watched "GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra" and "Julie and Julia" on the plane. GI Joe was much better than I expected, I don't know if it was really a good movie or if it was good because my expectations where so low. Either way, I really enjoyed it and would probably watch it again because it's always tough to watch super special effects movies on the little screen on the plane, not to mention that they probably cut some stuff too to make it more family friendly. Julie and Julia was a cute movie and was very well done, they mixed in just the right amount of Julia's life to let you know what her life was like before she became the TV superstar.
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While we are on the subject of TV superstars and cooking for that matter.. I landed Saturday and we decided to go to Bar Americain (Bobby Flay's restaurant in Mohegan Sun). We're not stupid enough to think the place won't be crazy crowded so we call, and call, and call.. Not once did they answer so we figure we will just go down, how long can the wait be? So, funny story.. They were closed for a Private Party on Saturday night! It was apparently the official opening night with the ribbon cutting ceremony and all.. So, Summer Shack it is.. We had a very nice meal at the Summer Shack and then headed home. During the day on Saturday we were trying to convince Christian and Mara to come down, luckily they didn't since the place was closed! Sunday we made attempt number two, once again we called all day and once again there was no answer. We went down somewhat early and were asked if we had a reservation.. How could we have a reservation when you don't answer the phone? Oh, we have the wrong number? Apparently both Bobby Flay's site and Mohegan Sun's site have the wrong phone number.
They sat us anyway after a very short wait and all the hassle was worth it.. I may have mocked Bobby, well, ok, I mocked him a lot.. I will not mock Bobby anymore, he is truly an Iron Chef. When Fuji TV was looking for the first American Iron Chef they turned to Bobby Flay and he showed how American he was by dis-respecting the kitchen and standing on his cutting board after the battle. I guess I never looked past that one moment. What I should have realized is that they picked him to the be the first and, at the time, only American Iron Chef and they obviously had reason to do so. I have now eaten at most of the Iron Chef restaurants, I have Cora, Batali and Garces left, and Bobby is certainly in the top 3 in my mind. The whole meal costs around $130 which is a pretty good deal when it comes to Iron Chef meals and I highly recommend his restaurant if you ever want to eat Iron Chef quality American food!
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This blog is getting out of hand so I am going to start ending it. Here's the quick week in review.. :)
Monday - Dinner with Holly, we went to dinner by her house and then back to her house where I finally met Brutus! I was about to write a big thing about how Brutus is a really cool dog and how I'm really glad we got along but I really don't want this blog to be 100 pages.. Oh, bah.. Nobody ever said you had to read my blog right? I assume if you're hear it's because you want to hear my ramblings so 10 pages or 100 pages it doesn't matter right?
So, after dinner we went back to her house.. First she let Ruca out, I met Ruca before and we seemed to get along so let's start easy.. Ruca came out and seemed to remember me which was good. We bonded a bit and then I held her leash and gave her a dried bull penis to keep her busy while Holly let Brutus out. Brutus came out and seemed surprised to see someone in the house, he was not upset, just surprised. He turned the corner into the living room and just stopped. Brutus is a much bigger dog then Ruca and I think he is the kind of dog who does not realize how big and strong he is. After some time, tricks and treats Holly brought him over to smell me, after a few minutes he was eating out of my hand. He is very gentle when taking food out of your hand, it could be the most gentle I've ever seen a dog take food from a person actually. After a little while I tried to give him his bull penis but unfortunately Ruca finished hers too quick so now she wanted his too. Brutus was let outside, then put away while Ruca was let out. Then Ruca was put away and Brutus came back out to hang out a bit more, I gave him his bull penis (I really just like saying bull penis) and we got along well. After a bit more he was put away and Ruca let back out with no leash while we played some Wii.
Tuesday - Dinner.. We had our own little Thanksgiving celebration with Turkey Burgers, stuffing, sweet potatoes and egg nog. I made Brazilian pizza with Catipuri, ham, onions and egg. I know, it's not very Thanksgiving, but it was in honor of Sao Paulo.
Wednesday - Played and lost the OOTP World Series.. Caught up on lots of TV..
Thursday - Thanksgiving at my mom's house.. Lots of food, lots of fixing computers and lots of good times..
Friday - Radio Shack (see above) and Joe's birthday party. Joe's party was zombie themed and most of the food was in the shape of brains.. He boarded up his front window and put caution tape up which made the house look really cool from the outside.
Saturday - Anja's birthday party, hung out with Dagmar again.. She is really cool and we need to get her to Tuesday dinners.. Me and Jessie caught up on more TV and played Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. That game is really not very good, the song choices are pretty bad and the sound mixing makes it hard to play. We have to keep reminding ourselves it came out between Guitar Hero III and IV, they obviously rushed it out.. Saturday night Kevin and Sarah came over and we played MULE, troubleshoot his PC (bad video card) and watched most of Red Dwarf Season 1.
Kiss just released a new CD set this week. They released this as a Walmart exclusive which is the first thing that pisses me off but whatever. I went to Walmart on Tuesday morning to wait in line and get my copy like all the other Kiss fans, yes there were lines.. I cleverly avoided the line in electronics when i saw a few of the CDs sitting on a A-Frame and grabbed one along with the new Madonna DVD and walked to the front registers which had no lines. :)
This CD set has two CDs and one DVD. The first CD is a new CD called Sonic Boom, on first listen I loved the first song then it dropped off dramatically till the last few songs. On second listen I was more forgiving perhaps because I found myself liking most of the songs but my favorites are still the first and last. The CD booklet lists who wrote each song but not who sung them, obviously I can tell the Gene and Paul songs but there was one song sung by someone else, I assume it was Tommy Thayer because I've heard Eric Singer's voice before and it was not that bad.. :)
Speaking of bad voice, Eric did sing Black Diamond on the second CD but did it in his best (it was bad) Peter Criss impersonation.. If you hadn't guessed the second CD was a CD of recorded Kiss hits called Kiss Klassics. The did 15 tracks and for some reason felt the need to include Christine Sixteen in that set. For the most part these songs sounded almost identical to their original versions all the way down to the fade out and fade in at the end of I Love it Loud, they did sound better if only for modern day recording studios. A few of the songs were actually different and mostly in good ways, for example I Was Made for Loving You was done more in line with how they play it live and not in the original disco mold. Forever was a stinker, Paul's voice sounded strained and uninspired. All in all I think Do You Love Me was the best of the re-recordings.
But wait, there's more.. This set comes with a 6 song live DVD that was recorded on the last tour in Buenos Aires. Kiss fans are everywhere and one of my co-workers was talking about getting this CD so I let him borrow mine and then we decided to watch the DVD here on one of the projectors. Wow, was it bad.. I gotta think as a marketing decision this was a major screw up, nobody is going to watch that DVD and then think to themselves 'man I gotta go see these guys'. They were out of tune, out of sync and generally had no life on stage. I have to imagine that they could have found a better night to take the recordings from.
All in all, is the new CD set worth it? Yes.. There are enough good tracks on the first CD to make the $12 paid a value not to mention most of the songs on the 2nd CD were well done and sound fuller than the previous versions. The DVD, just throw it out..
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If you live anywhere near Hebron CT you need, need, need to get to the CT Ren Faire this year.. They did an amazing job on the fight sequences this year. The story this year is called 'For the Love of Lancelot' and there are four shows throughout the day, five if you include the show at the gates before the faire opens. By the way, if you can you really want to try and get there before the gates open because that show was really good and really sucks you in.
I mentioned the fight sequences were great this year and that's mostly in part to Taryn Bazinet and Colette Marie Crowley who play two French girls who fight as one, they were like watching intense synchronized swimming combat. The final fight had this holy crap amazing sequence that you really just have to see to believe. No, I'm not going to describe it because you need to go see it live!
I was a little disappointed by some of the cast changes and the fact that the sheriff was not around but all in all it was an amazing time.
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Sunday me and Jessie went to the final Mets game of the year with dad. He bought tickets in the Ceaser's Plaza Club which were right in front of the SNY broadcast booth. Believe it or not the seats were a bit thiner than the seats in the section we want to move to in the Promenade, they were actually thinner than some of the seats on the same level but further away from Home Plate.
When we got to the game they had closed off our normal parking area and let us park in the main lot (usually only for pre-paid parking). Because we were in the main lot we decided to walk over to the Shea Stadium base markers. It was neat standing on the pitchers mound marker and looking around at how small everything looks. Citi-Field was beyond the outfield wall at Shea but yet it looks so close when standing on the mound and even at Home Plate. I guess it looks smaller because now it's all just a parking lot.
It was a really good game. Nelson Figueroa pitched a complete game shutout, first in Citi-Field history. Jessie got a new sweater from Touch and we got a ball autographed by Alyssa Milano. Here is a quote from the label of her sweater.
"to rally for each other
to play fair
to run with abandon
to dance with life
is to Touch"
:)
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Speaking of Monday.. Lynz come over Monday night with Anja and we watched a great episode of Nova regarding the possibility of life on Mars. You can watch the entire episode here on PBS.
This was especially interesting right now because I just finished reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson which is all about Terra-Forming Mars.
Speaking of Terra-Forming.. I'm going to be playing Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect in November, it's a futuristic LARP that takes place on a newly colonized world. Just finished making my character the other day. Going to use a shot gun so it should be fun and at the very least different.. Come check it out with me..
Tuesday dinner was spent working with Kevin on his costume and on my gun. We had to modify the shells so the bullets go further by drilling holes in the bottom to let more air in. Sarah stole the food show with her soup. Hopefully she will post the recipe either here as a comment or on the Tuesday night dinner blog.
Holly came over last night and I re-made my Tomatillo Salsa tilapia dish, but this time with cod because Price Chopper didn't have any tilapia. It came out good but not as good as it does with tilapia. The salsa was just as good but the end product was a little less then I would have liked it to be.
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Yay, Laire is tomorrow... Speaking of yay! Garfunkel and Oates are coming to NYC next week, they will be at the Upright Citizen's Brigade on Monday and at the Gotham Comedy Club on Wednesday. Me and Jessie will be going to the Monday show, care to meet us there?
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 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..
I have been taking a new way to Milford the last few weeks thanks to Google Maps and my GPS. Anyway, there is a home improvement store on the way that has the following quote on their sign out front.. "If you can't learn to do something well, enjoy doing it badly"
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Lots has happened since my last blog...
Went to the Mets/Yanks game at CitiField and was once again reminded why every year we say "this is the last Mets/Yanks game we go to".. I say this now, but I'm sure I'll go back on this next year.. I could sell those stupid tickets for almost as much (if not more) than my entire ticket package. Maybe next year I will really sell them..
Thursday was a great day with a capital G-R-E-A-T... Started out super exciting with a work con-call then going to Long Subaru in the down pour to get my 3,000 mile service.. I know, it does not sound to great yet.. Well as it turns out, Long Subaru gives you your first service free! After my car was done I went to Lynz's house for lunch, we ate at the Willi-Brewpub which I had not done in a long time and then got to relax at her house (kid-free and stress-free) which I had not done in, it seems like forever.. After dinner I ran home, took a quick shower and went out to meet Holly.. I got to meet Louie and then we headed out for sushi, the sushi restaurant we went to had outside seating so we got to enjoy the semi-warm weather while we ate. After dinner we went and played pool, I won both games with Holly scratching on the 8-ball, I guess that goes back to the quote on the top of this blog.. After pool we went to the boardwalk and sat on a bench looking out on the ocean. It was a beautiful night and it made for a wonderful end of a great day.
Sunday was not all bad, in fact it was not even half bad.. Actually, I think I quite enjoyed it (it being the day as a whole).. I went over Sara's house for lunch and we went and got (wait for it) sushi at Thai Basil.. After lunch we went and walked around the paths around her yard with Murphy. Sunday night Jesse, Marie and Sara came over and we went to the Courthouse for dinner and then we met up with Rene, Hoyle, Janine, Matt, Sile and Daniel and watched the Putnam Fireworks. I love the Putnam Fireworks, they always do an amazing job. I don't know how much they spend on them but it's worth every penny..
Speaking of Fireworks.. Friday night Amber and Kris came over and we hung out with my friend Mike playing Guitar Hero till real late.. Saturday me, Jessie, Amber and Kris went to my mom's house for a bbq, I went to Smoke and Leather and finally got a pipe.. Joe (my mom's husband) makes a really good BBQ sauce that he marinated the chicken in and put on top of the burgers. My mom bought a bunch of fireworks and we had a really good time shooting them off in the evening.. Me, my brother and his kids played Croquet during the day which was lots of fun (thanks Randy for showing me that silly game)..
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In and around this crazy week I've been working on my new shield for Laire, I am planning on fighting a bit this weekend so I need to have my shield re-done. I had been trying to get someone who was actually an artist to paint on my shield but nobody could do it under short notice so I did it all myself.. I'm actually shocked at how good it came out.. Not to sound too cocky but, I do tend to do a good job at whatever I actually try to do.. "unquiet" right? Anyway, I have pictures of it on my computer and they should be on Flickr soon after I post this blog, go check them out..
My feet have been doing much better, I ran a few times in the last few days and I've even been doing push ups again. Must make these pants not tight!
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Yesterday me and Jessie were going to go to the Thai place in Webster but on the way saw signs for Waterfront Mary's and decided to go there instead.. I'm very glad we did, the place is right on Webster lake and they have outside seating right against the water. They actually have docks so you can drive your boats to the restaurant! What an awesome idea, I would love to live somewhere that I could drive a boat to a restaurant! The food was good and cheap as was the beer. I will certainly be going back and I would recommend it to anyone. We had crab cakes which had tons of actual crab meat and I had a shrimp ceaser salad. The waitress recommended I put lemon in my ceaser salad which I had never tried before and turned out to be an awesome idea. The restaurant has a Myspace page but I can't link it because I'm typing this blog at work and can't access Myspace.
After dinner we watched Iron Chef America and History Detectives while I worked on my shield. I am all gaga over Elyse Luray (one of the History Detectives), I feel sorta stalker-ish because last night I joined Twitter and she was the first person I added my following list..
I added a bunch of new Food Network shows to my TV lineup (Chopped, Next Food Network Star, and The Best Thing I Ever Ate) for the summer since all the regular shows are in repeats.
