Online?!

Lynz came over with Anja last night for dinner..  I went to the store and started getting a bit frustrated trying to buy a salad dressing that was gluten free, I was in a bit of a hurry and after looking at the first few dressings I gave up and decided to make my own.  I decided I would make a chunky sauce and use the chunky bits to cook the tilapia in.  The sauce came out really good so I figured I would post the recipe.

5 tomatillos

1 green pepper

1/4 onion

1 large chunk of garlic (the garlic we have has monstrous cloves, I cut one clove in half twice to put in the sauce..  I would say it's equivalent to 3 normal size cloves)

approx 2 tablespoons of soy sauce

a pinch or two of salt

- Throw all of that into a food processor and get it all ground up (keep pretty chunky) then add oil to make it thinner, I would say about 4 tablespoons of oil.  Blend again but not too much because otherwise it will get less chunky.  Now take it off and put it on low heat till it warms up a bit, once it warms up put a touch of Agave in to sweeten it.  

- Now scoop out some sauce, try to get a bunch of chunks and spread them onto a frying pan.  Put the tilapia on the sauce (fish should not be touching the pan so it stays nice and moist), put more sauce on top and cook on medium heat till the top gets white and flaky.  Meantime the sauce should stay on low heat to continue to meld the flavors.  

- I also made brocolini which I put in a pan with a little bit of oil and salt, cover it so that it steams in the oil.  Cook it until the skin starts to caramelize.

- Carefully take the tilapia out of the pan when it's done and put on more chunks.

- What you have left will be a watery sauce which would be good for salad dressing or, as we did, something to top your rice or quinoa with.

After Lynz left I started folding laundry and, because Luna peed on the bed in the spare bedroom, start more laundry.  While I was folding laundry the oddest thing happened, I logged into gmail and noticed Kaitlyn was online!  I ended up chatting with her on IM while I folded laundry!  It was a little surreal having her on IM and knowing that she is now reading this blog..  Welcome back to the internet world Kaitlyn...  I added her blog link to the random links section..  

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Tuesday night I skipped dinner for the first time, it was not the first dinner I missed but it was the first I missed not due to travel.  Me and Melissa went to the Red Sox game instead.  A co-worker has season tickets in row B of the Right Field Roof Box, they are awesome seats and it was probably the first time I felt I had good seats in Fenway.  The seats still didn't face home plate but at least the pitch of the seats made it so that I could see over the heads of the people sitting in front of me.  I hate sitting on the field level there because if anyone sits in front of you (and at Fenway that means all the time) you can't see the field.  The game was a great pitching duel with the Red Sox coming out on top, the entire game was only 2 hours 15 minutes!  The food choices at Fenway do leave a bit to be desired but the burger I had was really good, probably because they were out when I ordered it so I got a fresh one.  They had signs for a kosher stand and I was going to get a knish but then I saw that their kosher "stand" was a vending machine!  It did have knishes but I didn't feel up for testing out a vending machine knish.

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Laire this weekend..  I am planning on "playing" Daimone for the full weekend, I say playing in quotes because I will be non-combat still.  The Order is staying in the inn which means I can play at night too because I won't have to walk down to the cabin.  Hopefully I'll win lots of gold at night while everyone else is out killing the bad guys.. :)

---Diversion of the Day

Flickr update...

I just uploaded 127 new pictures to Flickr..   Enjoy..  :D

Birthday Weekend...

Birthday in Jersey..

Me and Jessie decided to head to Portland Oregon for my birthday this year, why Portland?  Storm Large wrote a one woman musical about her life that she is performing at the Portland Center Stage, the show is running from March till the end of May and I hate missing once in a lifetime shows.  If you don’t know who Storm Large is she is a singer/song writer who is from MA, she moved out west and started a band.  That band had released a few CDs and then she went on Rockstar Supernova which is where we found her and fell in love.  She is a tough, kick ass girl who makes no excuses for her attitude, language and appearance.  Since Rockstar Supernova she has released another CD which not surprisingly was her best selling one to date.  Check out her song Ladylike which she sung on Rockstar Supernova and later recorded for the CD of the same name.

So, using Marriott Rewards points, Continental miles and a travel voucher we got our trip all set for a grand total of $80 + rental car and food.  I may bitch about my job but the travel thing is one part of it I really do love.

Enough background, let’s get to the fun that was this trip…  I mean that in a mostly serious way..  Thursday’s plans: Fly from Hartford to Newark, check.  Fly from Newark to Portland, how ‘bout Friday?  It turns out that Newark was having bad weather so our flight from Hartford was delayed, ironically (or rather unfortunately) the flight to Portland was not delayed by the weather..  Our flight to Portland was supposed to leave at 6:05 (and did) and our flight from Hartford got in around 7:00… No big deal, the hotel will be on the airline right?  Nope…  Because it was the weather that caused us to miss our flight they would not put us up in a hotel for the night.  We were made aware of this while still in Hartford so I started calling/texting a bunch of people from Laire to see who lived near the airport.  Our new flight was at 7am so we decided it would be silly to get picked up by someone local just to have to be back at the airport for 5am.  A few calls later and I cancelled one night in Portland and used the points to get a room in Newark..

After texting, chatting with a bunch of people in the area we decided to have Grifo meet us at the airport and go out with him for dinner/drinks.  He got on a few wrong trains and in the end never made it over (gave up around 9:30).  While waiting for Grifo to show up we met some really cool guys, one of them was from Chicago and visiting his friend in NYC.  His friend apparently hooked him up with a crazy girl, depending on who’s version of the story you believe he was told that the girl was crazy before he went off with her.  Regardless, she was crazy and not the good kind.  She is on medication and once it wore off she got real crazy and the whole experience ended with her hitting him while sitting in the airport waiting for his flight.  I have to give him credit for doing the right thing, he grabbed her hands and restrained her knowing that the cops (or goons as he called them) would show up and break it up.  As it turns out nobody reacted at all and he had to just sit there and take the beating, makes me sick that we pay a so called security force to let that happen.

We finally made it to the hotel and now it was getting late so our food options were very limited, we ended up eating in the hotel restaurant which ended up not being that bad.  I had a steak which was very well prepared, the spices were done very nicely and it was cooked almost perfectly (crispy on outside but still pink in the middle).  The hotel had Yuengling as well which is always a win.  Not the birthday dinner I imagined (eating at a nice restaurant in Portland) but it ended up being really good.

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Crazy Enough

When we got to the airport on Friday we couldn’t use the self check-in because our flight had been changed from the original plan, we went to the elite check in area and the elite security clearance area and were on her flight with plenty of time to spare.  Again, I love this part of my job..  The non elite lanes were out of control and we probably would have missed our flight.

Arrived in Portland, got a car and went to the hotel to shower and change before heading out for the day.  We were going to do a walking tour of Portland so we parked between the tour starting point and the theater but due to my foot we decided not to do the tour.  Instead we did the beer tour, we had lunch at a brewery called Deschutes Brewery, it was very good.  I had a burger with garlic, goats cheese and some mustard.  Jessie had a lamb burger which had tzatziki sauce on it, her burger was ok but mine was better.  We each got a flight of beers which includes six four ounce glasses, my favorites were the Mirror Pond Ale, the Amber Dawn, the Bachelor Bitter and the Gluten Free ESB.

After lunch we went to a book store called Powell’s.  This place is out of control big, they are at least an entire city block and three stories tall, they have different color rooms for what genre you’re looking for (the blue room was Sci-Fi, the red room was games, etc.).  They had some really old out of print books just sitting on the shelves used and some even new, they had autographed copies of some books for sale as well and they had a RPG section that was bigger than most stores entire sci-fi and fantasy section.  They had RPG books from the old West End Star Wars and one book from the Decipher Star Trek as well as almost any Wizards of the Coast book you could ever want.  We wandered around for a while to walk off the buzz we had from lunch.  They had an Ancient Greek section that was an entire isle, some of the books were in Ancient Greek and some were the translated versions we are all used to seeing.

After lunch we went to one of McMenamin’s pubs (the Ringler’s Annex) and I had a their raspberry beer (Ruby) which was very good, Jessie got a coffee with rum and it was super strong.  After our mid day drinks we went for a walk around the city, we didn’t see too much other than pubs and after a while ended up back at Powell’s so Jessie could get a real coffee before the show which we split.

The Portland Center Stage is a nice theater, they are actually two theaters, there is a big one upstairs which has two levels of seating and then there is the small one down stairs.  Crazy Enough was downstairs in the smaller of the two stages.  Before the show I saw Storm come in and walk up to the third floor to get ready, Jessie was standing on the stairs taking a picture of the poster when Storm walked past her.  While we were waiting for the show we saw the announcement that they extended the run to the end of June! 

I don’t know what to say about the show, it was the most personal thing I think I’ve ever seen done on stage.  She talked in depth about everything in her past, her mom had made a lot of attempts to take her own life and when Storm was a little kid she was told by her mom’s psychiatrist that it was hereditary and that she was be crazy like her mom.  She was told it would probably kick in when she was in her 20s or at the latest when she had kids of her own!  What a thing to tell a little girl!  She talked about a few of her mom’s attempts including one in which she put dishwasher detergent in dinner.  She talked about going to see her mom in the hospital and how it was when her mom would come home from these trips.  She talked about her sexuality at school and her bout with heroine when she moved to CA.  There was one really funny point when she was talking about her early sexuality when she had gotten an older lawyer in bed while she was still very young and after hours of sex after all of her makeup had worn off the guy looked down at her and asked “how old are you, really?” and she said 13.  I don’t know if she was 13 at the time or if she just said that to fuck with the guy but his reaction was hysterical.  She went on to talk about how her band and her attempt to get onto the Lilith Fair.  She also was a model for a dildo company and she relayed a really funny story about her time posing with the “product”, the camera man told her that she made their penises look small.  She finally made peace with her mom right before she finally died a few years ago, and she admits that she is indeed crazy, but unlike her mom her crazy works for her.  She’s not too crazy, she’s just crazy enough..  If you have the means I would recommend the trip out to Portland if only to see her show.  Hopefully she will release a live copy when the run is over, it would be awesome if it became a touring show.  We got the soundtrack and it has some truly amazing tracks.

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Speaking of crazy enough…  Did you know that Seattle is only a 3 hour drive from Portland?  Why is that relevant?  Well, the Red Sox were playing the Mariners so Saturday afternoon we drove up to Safeco field and saw the game.  Saturday morning we met Mik (a guy Jessie had been talking to on IM since Australia) and wandered around the city.  We went to the Saturday Market which is an outdoor market with food, drinks, clothes and artwork.  I had a Rogue summer beer and got a few cool things from the market.  We ate breakfast and lunch at the same vegetarian restaurant and then headed off to Seattle.  Safeco is a nice stadium, the view from the seats was very good, we had row 1 in the upper deck so we had a great view.  The only problem I had with the stadium was that when you were not at your seat I felt very away from the game, you could not see the field from any of the concourses.  The food was good, I had an Ichiroll which is a really spicy tuna maki roll, it was so spicy I almost couldn’t eat it.  One really cool thing about this stadium is that they had the ability to order food from your seat, you could do this on your Nintendo DS (Mariners are owned by Nintendo) or your Verizon phone via text messages.  The other nice thing (hope you’re not surprised) is that they serve Starbucks coffee instead of Dunkin Donuts.  I had a few different beers at the stadium including a Pyramid Amber Ale which was really good.  Speaking of Pyramid, they had a brew house across the street from the stadium which we went to after the game.  I had a summer brew from there which was also very good. 

We didn’t get back to the hotel till after 2am and had to get up at 4am so we could get to the airport in time for our 8am flight..  At the airport in Portland we went to the Rogue brew house and had a pre-flight drink and breakfast which included Kobe beef meatballs with blue cheese inside them.  At the Detroit airport I had my mid-day Murphy’s Irish Stout..  Got back to CT and ate at the Japanese restaurant in Willimantic before finally getting home to pass out..

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Portland is a really cool city, it's very laid back and very spread out.  There are no really big sky scrapers and there is a bunch of greenery in the city.  The ride to Seattle was amazing, there was this enormous snow caped mountain off in the horizon and the road was lined with big hills and enormous trees!  I can see why people love it out there, I wish I had more time (and healed feet) so I could go hiking and enjoy the lovely surroundings.  I would like go back there when I have time to just veg in the wilderness for a few days.

These are the days... <3

Last Monday I went to dinner with Amber at Blue Ginger in Wellesley MA..  Me and Amber were both having a "no-good-miserable-horrible day" and needed to have a good end to the day.  We met at the restaurant and after a short time looking at the menu decided to do the Tasting Menu..   The tasting menu was 5 courses including dessert.  I got mine with the wine paring, I assume the waitress filled my wine glasses beyond where they normally would so that we could share..  The amuse bouche was a bite sized pork meatloaf in a mushroom sauce.  Course 1 was -  hawaiian bigeye tuna poke with a crispy sushi rice cake topped with peppercress-tosaka salad.  Course 2 - sake-miso marinated Alaskin butterfish in a wasabi oil, soy-lime syrup with a vegatarian soba noodle sushi.  Course 3 - foie gras shiitake shumai in a sauternes-shallot broth.  Course 4 - grilled marinated hanger steak and garlic-black pepper lobster with lemongrass fried rice and pea tendril salad with soy-ginger vinaigrette.  Course 5 - bittersweet chocolate cake with cardamom ice cream and a sesame macadamia carmel nut tart.  The wines were all very good but the stand out wine for me was the 2005 Atteca Old Vine Garnacha which is from Calatayud Spain.  I have been there in the past with Jessie and it was just as good this time.  I wish it was not so far away so I could go there more often.. 

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Saturday I had a board game day at my house..  The planning started out as a small six person Catan game and ended up turning into an epic day culminating in 12 people coming over and 15 going to dinner and Star Trek!

Randy won Catan thanks to Christian stopping me twice from winning by pulling away my longest road points.  In retrospect I probably should have stopped trying to get longest road after the first time and I probably could have just built another two settlements and been done with it but I could fixated and fell...  After Catan we played Betrayal and hit a haunt I had never seen let alone played, the good guys almost didn't have a chance as I was the only one strong enough (Ox) to beat up the spaceship and I was taken out in the first round..  :(

Star Trek was a bit of a frustrating experience for me..  I honestly didn't care if I saw the movie in the movies and was only going because I knew so many people who really did want to see it.  I am that guy who talks during movies (whisper to people sitting next to me) and one of the big reasons for me to go to movies is to have that running commentary with people..  Anyway, we went into the theater and everyone scattered to different locations (some WAY up front, some WAY in back and others in the middle), unfortunately for me that meant that first of all I would now have to choose who I sat next to..  Normally I would have just stayed with Jessie in the middle but I really wanted to see it with my friends who drove really far to watch it with me..  Jessie went and found an elevator and I was able to go up to the top of the theater and watch it with Christian and Brad.

So, what did I think?  Well..   I have to say that I went into the movies with low expectations, I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to continuity and I was afraid of what they were going to destroy by making a prequel to the original series.  I also have to say (somewhat braggingly) that I did not see a single preview, I had a few close calls but I didn't even know who was cast (other than Kirk and Spock).  I am not going to give any details, just a few statements..  Casting - 4.5 Stars!  LOVED the casting of the younger versions of the crew, the only one who didn't amaze me and the reason for this not being 5 stars is Kirk.  I felt that he was sorta generic and didn't scream Kirk to me.  Everyone else was perfectly cast.  Special Effects - 5 Stars!  The effects were not only really well done but they never became the focus of the movie, I hate how so many new movies focus on the effects and lose the actual movie plot and character development.  Good Character Development & Dialogue - 5 Stars!  Evil Character Development & Dialogue - 2 Stars!  The enemies were supposed to be Romulon but they did a very bad job of portraying them both in appearance and attitude.  Plot - 3 Stars...  Nothing to say here, just see the movie and we can argue if you want...  Continuity - I am not going to rate this or say anything about it because it would give away the plot.. 

---Thought of the Day

"A love affair is not a lifetime. 

It's calendars and clocks, my friend. 

All good things 

Have to end. 

A memory of a happy moment -- 

That's what this week will one day be." - Aspects of Love

I have been accused of not doing "short term relationship", at the time it was meant to be a knock against me, I think it's a plus.  My shortest relationship with a lover was almost 3 years and I really like being able to look back on shared memories of happy moments.  There are people in my life I have known a very long time and I would be sad to have them leave, I am not foolish, I know that all good things do indeed have to end (learned that from Picard) but it does not mean that it has to end now, or even in a few weeks, months or years...  I really wish I had saved my calendars over the past 14 years because it would be so nice one day to be able to look back on those and say "remember when we did that"...  I know I have the google calendar for things going forward but it's a shame to not have the ones from the past..    I guess what I'm trying to say is...  Don't get so caught up in the moment to not think about saving something to remember it by..  In the end all you really have is memories and, if you're lucky, someone who shares them with you..  

Thanks to everyone who has and continues to help me create my "memory of a happy moment".. 

"Sometimes I get the feelin'

I was back in the old days - long ago

When we were kids when we were young

Things seemed so perfect - you know

The days were endless we were crazy we were young

The sun was always shinin' - we just lived for fun

Sometimes it seems like lately - I just don't know

The rest of my life's been just a show

Those were the days of our lives

The bad things in life were so few

Those days are all gone now but one thing is true

When I look and I find I still love you

You can't turn back the clock you can't turn back the tide

Ain't that a shame

I'd like to go back one time on a roller coaster ride

When life was just a game

No use in sitting and thinkin' on what you did

When you can lay back and enjoy it through your kids

Sometimes it seems like lately - I just don't know

Better sit back and go with the flow

Cos these are the days of our lives

They've flown in the swiftness of time

These days are all gone now but some things remain

When I look and I find no change

Those were the days of our lives - yeah

The bad things in life were so few

Those days are all gone now but one thing's still true

When I look and I find

I still love you" - Freddie

First of May 2009!

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..

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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.

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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.

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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..

---Diversion of the Day (obviously)

Surrounded by beauty

I am totally in love with this heat wave! I bitch and complain all winter but I do think the change in seasons makes you appreciate the warmer weather and the regrowth of nature. I just wish the colder parts of the year didn't last as long.

Yesterday I went up to Kaitlyn's house, we went and got some sammiches and brought them up to a beautiful waterfall in the middle of the woods. The water is all mountain run off and runs really strong this time a year due to the snow melting. All around the water there are amazing looking big rocks, Amber could probably spend an entire week there just studying the rocks.. I took a few pics (posted to Flickr), but they don't do it justice. The water comes down a waterfall and forms a really nice swimming hole that is a little over head deep, on the other side of the swimming hole is a cliff face of clay. Kaitlyn was telling me how in the summer they will swim across and get a bunch of clay, they swim back with it and put it all over their bodies and lay out in the sun on the rocks! Free spa anyone! I know, you can't have a spa without a hot tub/jacuzzi right? Well, if you swim to the base of the falls there are rocks you can sit on in the water and have the waterfall pounding around you.. After we ate and chatted for a while we ended up going for a swim, the water was surprisingly not cold. I would say the ocean in Australia was colder, I was able to sit in the water for a few awhile whereas in Australia I was not even able to get legs in the water!

Nature is really the best medicine, my foot feels great after spending a few hours out by the falls... I even slept without my boot on last night for the first time since having the cast off!

Ahh Warmth!

Had a great weekend.. Lovely weather and lots of fun events..

Thursday I picked Jessie up and we went to Red Robin for dinner before seeing Earth. When Discovery/BBC filmed Planet Earth they had a bunch of stuff they didn't use. Disney took some of the stuff they aired in Planet Earth and a bunch of stuff they didn't and made a really nice movie out of it. James Earl Jones narrated the American version which is always a good thing. Disney is planning on making this an annual Earth Day event, next year they are releasing Oceans. I just looked up the figures and it made $83,316,770 this weekend which is a lot of trees! Disney announced they would plant a tree for every ticket sold over the first weekend! When trying to find numbers I found out that Patrick Stewart narrated the International version of the film, hopefully when they release the DVD they will include both narrations.

Friday was wonderfully warm.. Melissa came over and we spent the day out and about, sat outside at Bella's Gourmet Market for lunch and I had the Balsamic Watermelon which was nice and refreshing.. Afterwards we went to Mohegan so she could put in applications before heading down to the outlet mall at exit 65. We got back to Putnam as the sun was starting to set, we tried to go to Thompson Dam but the bugs were coming out in force and we didn't think to use bug spray so we didn't last long.

Saturday was equally as nice out.. Putnam had their town cleanup scheduled for the morning and couldn't have picked a better day! Unfortunately I pushed it a bit too far during the cleanup and hurt my foot trying to get a boot from a pretty steep hill. Our cleanup ended early because I really couldn't stand/walk on my foot.. :(

After spending some quality time on the couch with an ice pack I felt good enough to head back out. We went down the outlet mall and I found a great piece of luggage made by Samsonite and Jessie finally replaced her sunglasses. After dinner we went to Water's Edge in Greenville RI, I posted some picks from there on Flickr but they don't really capture the beauty of the place. They have a porch that goes out over the water and creates a really amazing view, especially as the sun sets. The food there is really good too which could make it one of my normal haunts. I had the Rigatoni with Rabe and Sausage which was so good, the other nice thing was that the portion size was really nice and I didn't feel stuffed when we left.

After dinner we went to "Music at the Mill" and saw the West Eddy Trio. The Mill is a very small venue, they have couches and comfy living room chairs as their seats. They have a small selection of snacks and non-alcoholic beverages available which are all inexpensive. There is no set price for the show, instead they pass around a hat for you to contribute what you feel you want to. Adrienne West is the lead singer for the West Eddy Trio, she has a knock out voice. They did a bunch of covers and few of their originals, check out their youtube page. I personally can't wait for them to release their own music on a CD. They recorded the show and hopefully they will release some sort of live CD, the Mill has a few live CDs of people who were there in the past so there is a chance they will release Saturday night's show.

We went to the Mets game on Sunday and watched yet another bad game! Love the stadium, still planning on writing a blog about that, but it's getting very frustrating watching the Mets play bad ball... Murphy fell down again in LF... I know it's early but these early losses are killing us...

---Diversion of the Day
http://www.explosm.net/comics/345/

April catch up blog

So, the picture that was short-listed for inclusion in the seventh edition of the Schmap Sydney Guide was officially put to use in the guide which I think is pretty rockin'...

Here is the link - http://www.schmap.com/sydney/entertainment_concerts/#p=339954&i=339954_21.jpg

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The other night at dinner John mentioned an article on the Onion that talked about Mr. Met not getting enough sleep at the new stadium. Check it out..

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I've neglected this blog for far too long. I now need to recap almost the entire month of April..

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The week of the 5th - 11th..

Monday the 6th I woke up and decided I was going to try and walk on the cast, I took a few tentative steps before I put the crutches down and everything was great. To compare, I didn't walk on the cast until the beginning of week 4 during the last surgery and even then it was only for very short spans of time. This time I started walking in the beginning of week 3 and I only used the crutches a few since the 6th.

Melissa came over that day and we hung out and watched opening day! The great thing about opening day is no matter what, every team at least thinks they have a chance to make this their big season.. Thursday I went over Nathan's house up in Beverley for the first time. His house is very nice and they did a lot of work on it since they got it, it would have been interesting to really see how it looked before hand. We ended up going to Home Depot and Lowes and it was probably more walking than I should have done, by the end of the day my left knee, back, arms and shoulders were killing me. Luckily for me Lynz came over on Friday night and did a lot of work on my legs, arms, shoulders and back. I can't say how thankful I am that she was able to put everything back in place.

Friday night Melissa went to Alliance (LARP formally known as NERO), Saturday morning she came over to shower and get changed before going to a friend's party in Boston. I'm usually the one coming home from LARPs and being all excited about what happened so it was odd being on the other end of that.. A good odd, but certainly odd. I can't wait till Laire in May... I had to miss the April event because it was too close to me getting my cast off, but I'm ahead of myself..

Saturday night Sara came over and we went to Pho Evergreen in Greenville RI and had really good soup. It's a really nice family run restaurant, Sara told the girl she was allergic to gluten and she made a really good point of checking with her mom about each ingredient. On the way out the youngest boy was sitting in the reception area watching TV and we heard a dog barking from what appeared to be the back room.

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The week of the 12th - 18th..

The 12th was Easter or as a friend called "Zombie Christ Day".. We went to my brother's house which was nice because we had not been there in a while and the food was really good... His kids are getting real big, it's sort of amazing to me to realize that little Lenny is now 16!

Monday I went to dinner with Kaitlyn at our normal restaurant (the People's Pint) and afterwards got to sit and listen to her play the guitar and sing! It was finally nice enough out so that we could sit in her breezeway and just relax. She'll probably yell at me for saying this in my blog, but she has a great voice and I could totally see her playing an acoustic live set in a local bar or club.

Tuesday I got my cast off!!!!! I was supposed to get it off on Thursday but I could not get an appointment early enough to do it and then get to the Mets game in the same day. I really wanted someone to be there with me when I got it off because I was unsure how stable I would be afterwards so I picked Melissa up Monday night and brought her to Putnam so she could go with me on Tuesday to the doctors. The cast came off and the foot actually had strength enough to push the doctor's hand which is way better than last time when I could barely stand. They gave me a soft boot cast and it was really nice out so we went to play Mini-Golf afterwards which Melissa won by one stroke!

Wednesday night I went over to Willimantic and ate dinner with Lynz and Anja, we went to the sushi restaurant in the mall and hung out at her house afterwards. I had not been down to Willi in a while so it was a good change spending some time there.

Thursday was my first game at Citi-Field! I think I am going to write a separate thing about the stadium in general so I'm just going to say that for Thursday nights game is was COLD! I went with Melissa and my dad. Mike, his mom, Amber and Kris met us there. Ivon ended up spending the whole game in the Promenade Club bar and only came to the seats for about 10 minutes towards the end of the game.

Saturday me and Jessie went to lunch with Hoyle and his wife Janine. We met up at Unos by their house and afterwards went back to their place for a while to hangout and chat. She is a very nice girl and I think we may have convinced her to come to Tuesday night dinners. Yes, I have not mentioned anything about Tuesday night dinners in this blog. And Yes, they are still going strong. Trick is I don't remember what everyone brought each week so I will just say that they were fun as always! I will actually talk about this weeks in a bit but I'm not there yet... So... After leaving Hoyle and Janine's house we went home and met up with Ryan and Sara for dinner at Bella's Gourmet Market in Putnam. The just reopened after being closed for a week to put in a kitchen, they now have a full dinner menu and I highly recommend you check them out if you live in the area. They have this amazing Balsamic marinated grilled Watermelon as an appetizer that comes with chocolate goat cheese! I would go there and just eat that! I got a steak which was so tender I was able to cut it with my butter knife!

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The week of the 19th - today..

The 19th saw my 2nd game at Citi-Field, it was still cold but a bit warmer. I went down with Jessie, Sara, Ryan and my dad. We gave Mike's tickets to Amber and Kris but they didn't show up. Ivon sat at his seats this time and once again we lost. Walked less this time but still probably too much.

Monday was my first day back at work, I went in early because of the silly Boston Marathon and ended up lasting till after lunch before my foot was starting to really bother me and I took off. Monday night Amber came over and we went to dinner at Someplace Special. She filled me in on all the goings on at Laire over the weekend while at dinner much to Jessie's boredom.

Tuesday I went to work, then the dentist... I had a cleaning appointment scheduled for 2, I got there a few minutes early and found out that my dentist had retired and given the practice to another dentist. I've never met the dentist so him retiring is really not that big a deal, but.. The dental assistants were very upset over the changes which included having to use new machines. Upset dental assistants + new machines = horrible cleaning! I left there feeling a bit violated and in pain. I hate dentists! Dinner was quiet this week, in attendance was me, Jessie, Melissa, Sara (for most of it), Ryan, Joe, Hoyle, John (for a little while) and Kristen (for a few minutes towards the end). We (me, Jessie, Hoyle and Melissa) got there late and were the first to arrive. Joe showed up a few minutes later and then Sara had to leave because of "mom issues". We ended up going to the table with just the 6 of us. John showed up a little while after and then Sara came back to bring our little group up to 8. Kristen showed up while everyone was eating dessert to drop the kiddies off for Sara to watch for the night.

Yesterday I went to dinner with Sara at Thai Basil while Jessie was at Yoga. We were supposed to go early but we had to wait for Kristen to come get the kiddies before Sara could come out. I got home from dinner around 9 and ended up chatting with Ange and Melissa before heading to bed.

Holy crap - it's today! I am sitting at work with a bunch of pissed off employees, apparently even though my company made record profits last quarter they are giving everyone a pay cut for the rest of 2009! Oh and they stopped 401k matching funds too! I'd hate to see what they would do if they didn't post record profits! I dropped my car off at Patrick Subaru for it's first 3,000 checkup since the new engine. It's been getting very poor gas mileage and running kinda loud and although Kiss may Love it Loud I don't when it comes to my car. They just called a few minutes ago to tell me it's done so now that I'm done with this long ass-blog I'm going to go get it. Tonight I'm going to the movies with Jessie, we are going to see Earth. I'll let you know how it is. If you don't know Disney is planting a tree for every ticket sold this weekend so go..

---Diversions of the Day
It's been long time since I blogged so I will give you two today...
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20090413.html
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2009-04-14/index.html

Bag of Weed

I have been meaning to write a blog for a few days now and have not had the time to dedicate to it.. This is not that blog... That blog will hopefully be written tomorrow while at work or maybe later tonight depending on plans...

Anyway, this blog is all about Family Guy and the song Bag of Weed!

If you have not seen Family Guy from last night you missed a great episode in which Brian gets arrested for having a bag of weed on him. The go to the park and Brian and Stewie sing a song about pot.. Here it is:

http://pleasedontstare.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/family-guy-bag-of-weed/

Lyrics -
Stewie: Now everybody gather ’round and listen if you would
When I tell you every person needs a way of feeling good
Every kitty needs a ball of string and every dog a stick
Stewie & Brian: But all you need is a bag of weed to really get a kick
All: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight
A Bag of Weed, A Bag of Weed
Oh, Everything is better with A Bag of Weed
It’s the only hope that you’ll ever need
Cuz’ Everything is better with A Bag of Weed
Stewie: Here you go, you’re all getting it now
Ensemble: When Texas people want to feel good,
Stewie: They go assault a queer.
Ensemble: When stupid people need a thrill,
Stewie: They rent The Rocketeer.
Ensemble: When Michael Jackson needs a rush,
Stewie: He humps a guy like me.
Ensemble: Right!
All: But all we need is a bag of weed,To keep us worry free.
One, Two, Three, HO!
A Bag of Weed, A Bag of Weed
Oh, everything is better with A Bag of Weed
Oh, you don’t need meth and you don’t need speed
Cuz’ Everything is better with A Bag of Weed
Stewie: Have a go, Brian!
Brian: As Mr. H.L. Mencken said, “The common man’s a fool.”
Stewie: And just like Helen Keller said, “Doof stoo gee nay foo tool.”
Brian: But try and use your heads and don’t buy into all the fear.
All: HEY!‘Cuz all we need is a bag of weed
To make us wanna cheer!
And One, Two!
A Bag of Weed, A Bag of Weed
Oh, everything is better with A Bag of Weed
You can try and fight but we’re all agreed
Because everything is better with A Bag of Weed
(break)
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight,
And One, Two, Three, Four, And A Five, And A Six, And A Seven! HO!!
A Bag of Weed, A Bag of Weed
Oh, everything is better with A Bag of Weed
You’re a happy guy but you can’t proceed
Because everything is better with A Bag…Of…Weed!
Oh ev’rything is better with a bag of weed!!

Photos and Video

I posted pics to Flickr today and when I got there I had a message telling me that one of my photos has been short-listed for inclusion in the seventh edition of the Schmap Sydney Guide, to be published late April 2009.

I had to approve their use of my picture which I gladly did. That kind of thing makes me feel cool because it's a random pic I took that they now want to use in a city guide!

The picture they chose was one of the ones I took of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

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I also posted 9 videos from One Night of Queen on YouTube.

Mets add 'historic bat' in Sheffield

No, this is not a blog about only baseball again.. I just laughed my ass off when I read that headline on MLB.com.. I guess "historic" is the new pc phrase for old.. If you don't know who Gary Sheffield is, he used to be a great outfielder, now he is a has-been. He is 40 years old and his last good year was 2005 when he hit .291 with 35 home runs, he has steadily decreased since then and was released by Detroit in spring training because he hit .175 in the spring. If the Mets were going to sign a random old outfielder I would have rather they sign Bonds who could probably still play or at least hit the crap out of the ball.

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Quick update, recap of the last week or so...

Last Saturday was Joe M's birthday, originally just Jessie and Hoyle were going to go but since my foot was feeling pretty good I decided to tag along and drag Sara with us. We met at a Comedy Club/Brewery in Hartford called City Steam Brewery Cafe around 5 figuring we would eat and then catch their 7pm show. When we got there we found out that the show was sold out so we could either go to the late show or go to Funny Bones in Manchester, after a quick vote we decided to eat and head to Funny Bones. Speaking of food... I would really like to go back to that brewery on a night that they didn't have a show, the food (crab cake sliders) was very good when they finally brought it. I had a two of their beers and they were both tasty, the first (and better) beer was the Winter Wheat which is an odd beer, at first I was not sure if I liked it but by the end of the glass I decided I liked it enough to bring home a growler. Well, as it turns out the Winter Wheat was the end of the run, I got about 2 glasses in the growler but they only charged me $3 for it so I figure it's a win. The 2nd beer I had was Deirdre Does Dublin which is a Guinness clone, it was ok but not great.

After dinner we loaded into the car and shot down to Manchester, got tickets and got seated right before the show started. Ian Bagg was the headliner and was really funny. I forgot the names of the first two comedians, they were ok but obviously not that memorable. My leg was still feeling ok afterwards so we went back to Joe's house and played some Apples to Apples with his clan.. Speaking of his clan, I was shocked to see Gwen sitting at the table when we arrived for dinner. Me and Jessie knew Gwen from a few years ago when she was living in Willimantic with her ex Jack. We lost touch with them when they moved down to Georgia, we messaged Gwen once or twice when she moved back to Providence and it was very cool to catch back up with her over dinner and the show. We didn't stay too long at Joe's because my foot was starting to really bother me. We did stay long enough to invite Joe, Melissa and Gwen to Tuesday night dinners. More on that later.. :)

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Monday I had lunch with Mike B at Bella's in Putnam and helped him setup his stereo system at his girlfriend's condo. Bella's is adding a kitchen this coming week, they are closing Monday-Wednesday and revamping the restaurant. When they open back up on Thursday they will have a full dinner menu including Jessie's raw pasta sauce!

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Melissa came over during the afternoon on Tuesday to hang out before dinner. We hung out and watched "What the Ancients Knew - Greeks", it's the 2nd "What the Ancients Knew" episode I recorded (the first was Japanese). I was not impressed with the way they put the show together, there was so much they could have talked about but didn't. The only thing that was really cool was when they talked about the giant Triremes, which were their war ships. They actually built one and had a team of modern day rowers get in and test how fast it could go and how long they could maintain that speed. Jessie made a tamarind dip for dinner, Sara made Afghan Squash which was really good especially when mixed with Jessie's tamarind dip.. Kristen made cookies and Lynz & John made a veggie dish. Melissa was hijacked by the kiddies when she arrived and didn't rejoin the adults till dinner was served. After dinner I went and laid on the couch to put my foot up and Melissa came and sat with me when the kids weren't having her spin them..

We ended up playing Trivial Pursuit after John and Lynz left. Teams were - Me and Melissa, Jessie and Hoyle, James and Therese, Kevin and Sara and Kristen. Joe was going to team with Kristen but he was not feeling good so he took off early. Hoyle and Kevin are pretty evenly matched when it comes to trivia games but Hoyle and Jessie ended up coming out on top in the end. Me and Melissa did ok considering we kept getting distracted by the kids and apples.

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Wednesday I had lunch with Mom, Joe, Grandma and Sara. Joe made a pizza for him and Sara, the rest of us got pizza from that really good pizza place in Putnam. Grandma was not impressed saying that it was not really New York pizza. Mom and I disagreed.. :)

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Lynz came over Thursday, she had been meaning to check out that herb place by the Vanilla Bean so we ate lunch at the Bean and checked out that place. I had a turkey, bacon, avocado wrap which was sooo good.. After lunch we went up to Dr Scheffel's office to get my stitches out. Getting the stitches out hurt a lot more this time, last time getting the stitches out was a relief because of the staple that was pulling on the bandages, this time there was no relief just pain. The re-casting process really sucks, while your knee is bent they push your foot up to the angle they want it and then have you hold it there while they cast it. Holding the foot at a stretching angle really hurt my knee and my muscles. Once the cast is on and hard the next trick is straightening your knee which stretches the tendon even further. Back to the pain meds for a few days..

Amber came over for a bit on her way home which is always cool.. The rest of Thursday night was lots of Red Dwarf. Years ago I started watching Red Dwarf with my friend from NY, we watched 3 seasons and I think we watched 1 episode in the last year so I decided to download them off Netflix online.

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Last night me, Jessie and dad went to see One Night of Queen which is a Queen tribute band called Gary Mullen & the Works, they are sanctioned by Queen and Brian May as the definitive historical Queen show. They did two sets, the fist set was good but the 2nd set was holy crap amazing! The version of Love of My Life was probably the crown on the show for me, they did a different version of it than Freddie and Queen would normally do and it was great to hear him use Freddie's voice but a different arrangement. They also broke up We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions with Friends will be Friends which was nice and unexpected. We got handicap seats which were very close to the stage off to the side of the theater. I took lots of videos and should have them up on YouTube in a little while.

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So, I'm watching the Mets/Red Sox game now. Before watching this I watched this weeks Mets Weekly which talked a bit about food at Citi Field, they apparently have a stand which has fries with various dips including a bacon dip!

Speaking of Baseball.. Over the last few days I've been reading a bunch of different articles on ESPN.com and MLB.com.. Here are some interesting things I read...

The new Yankee stadium has a center field restaurant that apparently blocks the view of the field from the bleachers! They just announced they are lowering the price of those bleachers to $5 because they are "limited view", if you look online you can find pics of what it looks like to sit in those seats. Speaking of Yankee stadium, the Yankees increased their ticket prices 76.3% from last year! The Mets increased their ticket prices by 8.6%.. The Red Sox had the highest average ticket price for the last 13 years, this year the Yankees eclipsed them. The average ticket price at Yankee stadium is $72.97, the average ticket price at Fenway is $50.24, 3rd place is Wrigley Field at $47.75 and Citi Field is 4th at $36.99.

How about salaries? The Yankees are once again #1 in baseball with $216,661,739.. The Mets are at $129,987,735.. I don't know where the Mets fall because not all teams have published their salaries yet for the 2009 season. I know, if all the teams have not published their figures how can I say the Yankees are #1? Because no other team is even near them.

---Thought of the Day
Be true yourself and have the confidence to know that by being yourself nothing is untouchable or unattainable..

hulu.com

For the last few months I've been seeing ads on TV for something called Hulu, the ads are very odd and usually have something to do with the actors being aliens. For example..



Anyway, I was chatting with Lynz today and she mentioned watching TV on HULU.com. As it turns out Hulu is a website that allows you to watch TV and movies online for free! They actually have a pretty big selection of movies and TV shows not to mention movie trailers. I just watched the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

If you have never seen it check it out...

---Thought of the Day
"I love this, check it out"...
In almost everything in life that's our attitude right? Whether it's food, TV show, movie, drink, sunset, ocean, etc.. the only thing in our existence that's "I like this and nobody else can have it" is a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife.. Why is that? Wouldn't the world be a better place if that wasn't the case?

Failblog 2

So, I started reading Fail Blog today.. As with anything I started at the beginning and I am now up to May 11, 2009.. Here are my favorites so far...

Tom Seaver to John Franco... Roles Reversed?

Tom Seaver was the best starter in the history of the Mets and as you might remember he threw the final pitch in the history of Shea Stadium.. Seaver thew out 395 first pitches for the Mets at Shea Stadium and 1 very emotional last pitch. Today the Mets officially opened up Citi-Field for a St. John's University game against Georgetown. Long time Met and St. John's alumni John Franco was on hand and threw out the first ever pitch in Citi-Field history, Franco pitched for the Mets for 14 years and in that time threw 484 last pitches but today marks the first first pitch of his long career!

I knew that Franco was throwing out the first pitch for weeks but when I was reading the article and looking at the pics today it made me really think about the Seaver/Franco connection. Seaver and Franco are two of the Mets most popular players in their history, they were also two of the most successful players in Mets history, 311 wins for Seaver, and 424 saves for Franco. They both played for the Mets for over 10 years (12 for Seaver, 14 for Franco) and they both also played for the Cincinnati Reds, Seaver was traded from the Mets to the Reds in 1977, stayed there till 1982, and Franco came up with Reds in 1984 and played there till he was traded to the Mets in 1989.

Seaver's 311 wins ranks him at 18th in the history of pitchers.
Franco's 424 saves ranks him at 1st in the history of left handed pitchers. (4th all-time)

So the Mets call on the man most noted for starting games to close out the old park and the many most noted for ending games to open thew new park.. So, it seems in the business of stadiums these two legends are reversing their roles..

Introducing WPA

Works Progress Administration is:

Founding Directors:
Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) - vocals, guitar
Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek, Fiction Family) - guitar, vocals
Luke Bulla (Jerry Douglas Band, Ricky Skaggs) - fiddle, vocals, guitar

Executive Board Members:
Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) - fiddle, vocals
Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) - piano, organ
Greg Leisz (Joni Mitchell, Wilco, Sheryl Crow, Beck) - pedal steel
Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Randy Newman) - drums
Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Cracker) - bass

---2nd Diversion of the Day

Failblog

Jessie was just showing me some cool stuff on Fail Blog.. It's a pretty funny site, if you have not checked it out yet it's failblog.

I'm sitting here with Jessie's mom showing us loads of corsican music.. She is going to corsica for an indeterminate amount of time, she got a one-way ticket and will be there for at least a month.. Corsica is an island off the coast of Italy that is owned and operated by France.

When she first got here today we went out to 85 Main for lunch. After lunch we went over to VSC and Elizabeth was the person in front of us in line. It was pretty funny, Chris started talking to me while Elizabeth was in front of me and I wish I could have seen her face because what ever reaction she had made Chris laugh. She asked him why he was laughing and he said something like is it a crime to laugh, sometimes funny things pop into my head.. She ordered her drink and left and I thought he was going to say something but he saw that we were there with Jessie's mom so he didn't say anything other than that was weird.. Like I said, I wish I could have seen that encounter from Chris' eyes.

Anyway, I'm off for now..

---Thought of the Day
"We don't like strangers to pass through without getting to know them because strangers can become enemies but friends can never return to being stragers again." - Lion Among Men

---Diversion of the Day

JoboOodyDubs

This morning Jessie wanted to show me the Shamwow infomercial. We looked it up on the TV and from there went to the slap chop. From that one we found a parody called slap nuts which was eh. From there we found a bunch of parody ones and I now give you what in our opinion was the best one.. Might Putty Dub by Jabo0odyDubs.

---Diversion of the Day

Seats at CitiField

So, the Mets opened Citi-Field up for people do take seat tours for season tickets. A fan went in and took a bunch of pics and posted them on Photobucket.

Anyway, this picture is pretty close to what the field will look like from our seats..



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What else? Well, I've been doing a whole lot of hanging on the couch, all in all this surgery recovery is alot easier than the last one. My foot does not really hurt and hasn't for a few days except the time I put all my weight on it by mistake.. I think the big difference this time is that there is no staple tugging on my bandages. The other big difference is that the swelling is not going away nearly as quickly, but I will trade that for the no pain any day.

I have been driving a bit which is good because it was not until the 3rd or even 4th week I was willing to drive last time. This time it's the left foot so I can use the pedals still with my right foot, but the big difference is the pain levels.

Tuesday before dinner Lynz came over but I was feeling all feverish so I slept most of the day while she worked, we did get a few episodes of Cheers in towards the end of the day. I went to Tuesday night dinner (drove there, Jessie drove back) which was lots of fun, not sure what stole the show, it was either John's biscuits and sausage gravy or Kristen's ham, cheese and veggie dish. After dinner we went into the living room and played Balderdash which is a funner game than I thought it would be.

Wednesday Sara came over and we watched a few 4400 episodes, we are now on disc 2 of the 3rd season. For christmas my dad got me the entire 4400 box set, each episode is extended so it's been really awesome watching them over again. There were actually pretty important scenes pulled out of the original airings because of time, for example at the end of the 4th episode of season 3 they show Isabella going to meet Rilan at his office, obviously no reason was shown but that's awesome because it explains Rilan's later involvement.

Thursday I ventured out on my own and hung out in Putnam for a while which was nice to do, made me feel all quasi independent. Afterwards I watched the rest of the Monk episodes I had TiVo'ed, I am now caught up. The final season of Monk starts this summer and knowing that it's the last episode I'm really looking forward to it. I think the show is ending just in time before it gets too played out.

Speaking of played out... I watched the latest episode of Legend of the Seeker!!! If you're like me and still holding on to this stupid ass series you will have seen maybe the worst book to film/TV abortion ever made last week! If you have not seen you may not want to, especially if you have any respect for Terry and his work. The question I have to ask myself is, WHY!?! Why do I still watch this show.. I know I said in a previous post that I was going to stick it out for the rest of this season but I honestly don't know anymore... There are only two episodes left so I'm going to TiVo them but I will only be watching them if there is nothing on TV like this afternoon.

Thursday night John, Lynz and Anja came over and had dinner and played Guitar Hero World Tour. Jessie moved her bass up to hard and only failed one song, John did a great job playing drums, the first one I've seen pick it up and not fail the first few times.. Lynz played guitar and I sung for the most part. I actually jumped to the drums on two songs and did pretty well considering my left foot is in a cast and my right ankle is sore from the constant workout of carrying all my weight.

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Back to the beginning.. I'm really looking forward to this season and Citi-Field.. I loved Shea and I will always have very fond memories of going there but I am very excited for Citi-Field, other than the naming rights and the lack of dome I think they did a great job of everything else. Check out that photobucket site and hopefully you will share my opinions. I had been getting worried about the Mets but with Maine's good start yesterday and our bullpen coming together now that Putz and K-Rod are back from the WBC. I'm still bitter about Duaner being released but you gotta move forward right? Duaner was picked up by San Diego and has pitched 4 innings so far for them allowing 1 hit. In one respect I'm glad he didn't sign in the NL East but on the other hand it would have been karma if he had and because a thorn in our side. At least we only play the Padres 6 times all year so he can't be that big of a thorn.

---Thought of the Day
"A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club

Garfunkel and Oats

These ladies are amazing!

Kate Micucci - http://www.katemicucci.com/music.html
Riki Lindhome - http://rikilindhome.com/
Gafunkel and Oats - http://garfunkelandoates.com/

---Diversion of the Day

Larry from Erika Lindhome on Vimeo.

Couch....

Laying on the couch taking pain killers and watching lots of mindless TV.. When I say mindless I really mean that.. I am now all caught up on Legend of the Seeker and it's still really crappy! As a matter of fact it might be getting worse as the show continues. There are three episodes left in season one so I am going to make myself finish the season but I will not be watching it next year if there is one. Some of the horrible things they did was gave Zedd a brother, made Geller an evil wizard trying to recreate the power of a confessor and speaking of confessors, they have an army of confessors who were all running from one quad and in that army of confessors was the real mother confessor! Oh, it's ok though because now Kahlan is the mother confessor because Kahlan and Richard killed the mother confessor after she confessed Zedd!?! As I said, I'm going to make myself finish watching the season but I'm done after that...

Right now I'm catching up on Monk, what's really cool about that is that I'm watching it in black and white. Why, you ask? It's on my old TiVo which is an old series one, the series one TiVos have a problem when you put it into standby mode it sometimes comes back in black and white. Now I can't get it back into color, I think it has more to do with the fact that I broke the connector on the back of the TiVo when I took the coax cable off. I'm planing on getting an old Series one TiVo from dad so I can swap out my hard drives and copy the rest of our old shows off in color. I'm sorta growing bored with Monk right now, I've watched a bunch of episodes over the last few days and it's amazing how similar they are to each other. Plus, it's been years since they did any advancement on the Trudy murder plot line.

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Japan beat Korea in last night's WBC game which means that Saturday night Korea plays Venezuela and Sunday night Japan plays the USA. The winner of each of those games plays in the final on Monday night. This is the first round of the WBC that should have a double elimination, instead the first few rounds did. They way the first few rounds worked was:
Day 1
Team A v. Team B
Team C v. Team D
Lets say A and C win.
Now Day 2
Team B plays Team D
Team A plays Team C
Lets say B and A wins (that sends Team D home because they lost twice)
Now Day 3
Team B plays Team C
Lets say team B wins (that sends Team C home because they lost twice)
Now Day 4
Team A plays Team B and they both continue to next round regardless of who wins!

As of right now there is no way Japan and USA can play in the final game. Because they play each other in the first game and one of them will go home. I would think in the finals you would want the double elimination.

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So, as you may or may not know we got a new HD Tivo over last weekend and had the cable guy install cable cards in it on Monday. When I booked the appointment they told me the cable company did not use Multicards and that they would have to give me two Single Cards. Well, the Tivo worked well for a day or two before it started skipping and losing picture. The cable guy came out today to troubleshoot and brought a Multicard. He pulled the S cards out and put the M in and now everything seems to be working again plus we save $3.00 a month because now we are only paying for one card. I really hope this is not an ongoing problem, the cable guys seems to think that it will be an ongoing problem because of the cable cards.

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I updated the relationship chart finally... Here is the new version...