Wonderful Weekend full of Visitors

Friday and sat Nathan and Emily from GW were in town! It was so great to see them, and I spent a majority of the time trying to convince them to move back. We went to the dulles air and space museum, the natural history museum, and the brickskeller.

Peter's friend from college moved in with us temporarily till he gets his own place, but he's really nice. The three of us went out to wolf trap to see Lord Of the Rings: the two towers, in HD projection accompanyed by a live symphony and vocalist. It was awesome!!! I cant wait for the third installment next year.

I completed my weekend watching Back to the Future Part II. I still love this series!! People say the third one isnt very good but i'm too into the series not to watch it. My Tivo is set to record it later this week! cant wait!

Restaurant Week

If any of you have had a restaurant week conversation with me, you know its a difficult experience for me. I have to find the menu in advance and make sure they actually offer a vegetarian option, and that its NOT mushroom.

I called around and found a suitable restaurant. Il mulino. They were supposed to have vegetable minestrone and pesto gnocci. perfect.

We get to the restaurant and they start off by putting a plate of salami on the table. Gross. Next they offer us "fried zuccini" which were just room temperature greasy smooshy things. The brucetta and bread was good though.

The menu arrives and its totally changed!! For the appetizer, while they still offer the minestrone they also offer what looks like an awesome salad with my personal weakness...hearts of palm. I got the salad, but was disappointed because the bed of weeds it was on instead of lettuce was not that enjoyable. Peter still got the minestrone and i tried it and it was awesome.

The main course has had the veggie option switched out with mushroom ravioli!!! BAIT AND SWITCH! THOSE JERKS. Since that was the only vegetarian option i got it. It wasnt even like regular mushroom ravioli, there was no cheese in there, just entirely packed with mushroom bits. GROSS. I hollowed out all the ravioli and are just the pasta shells. it was alright, but certainly not something i'd get again.

The dessert was a weird cheesecake which was alright. I enjoyed the fruit and whipped cream on the plate :)

Lastly they gave us each a glass of grappa. I've never had that before, but it was a raspberry flavored liquor shot. A nice restaurant tradition :)

So in summary, Il mulino might have potential, but thier mushroom ravioli is the worst

Just my luck

Yesterday I got the call from the VW place that they figured out the problem with the car was my oil pump which needed to be replaced and my warranty would cover both that plus 2 days of car rental.

I went to pick up my car rental (thanks to my ride from chris yesterday). The car looks fine. Its a toyota camry just like half the taxis in virginia (the other half are corollas).

I get in, and the "maintenance required" light is already on. Awesome. I am also allergic to whatever smell is in the car. I don't know if its the cleaning stuff, or the last person's perfume, but i have to drive with my windows open at all times. And lastly, every time i break or drive up hill my car squeaks like crazy!

Looking forward to getting my car back

The Usual Suspects

Since i range from one to two decades behind the movie curve I just saw the usual suspects last night for the first time.

I went into the movie knowing nothing except that just about everyone loves this movie.

For the first part of the movie I was confused. The whole time line was a little weird, but eventually I got it straightened out.

The movie was overall enjoyable, but i particularly liked the last scene when the detective sits back and looked at the bulletin board and figured it all out.

Also, the "twist" didnt shock me at all, infact I had come to that conclusion on my own about half way through the movie.

Anyway, I liked the movie.

Still no car

Friday, on my way to work, the car "engine oil pressure" light went on just as I was dropping peter off on capitol hill. So i pulled over and got my car towed....again.

By the end of the day the car place finally called to tell me that it was an engine oil pressure problem (thanks i knew that) and they'd wait till monday to find out more. So here I am on monday, carless. We'll see what today brings. Luckily chris was nice enough to drive me to work though :)

Also p and i went with joe and kate to see 500 days of summer and it was pretty good. I like both the main characters as actors, so that was good to see them together. some of the movie was super cute too...some tried a little too hard. but overall it was enjoyable and i'd recommend it.

caberet

Peter made me watch caberet the other night believng i would love it based on the fact that i love many other musicals including mama mia, rent, sound of music, king and i, the list goes on.

I very much did NOT like caberet

1. Liza Minnelli is SO annoying. Her voice mainly. I understand that the character is supposed to be like that, but i just wanted her to shut up after like the first 20 minutes.

2. The songs suck. There is not a single song that I wanted to download later, which if you've seen my itunes playlist says a lot.

3. None of the other characters were likable. The one bisexual guy was mildly likable, but totally boring and lame.

4. The story was boring. I mean this is a pre ww2 berlin story, so much could have happened. none of which did. Maybe it would have been "original" if i watched it in 1972 when it first came out, but in 2009 it blows

5. the dancing to the songs was weird and creepy.

Moving offices again

My project decided they wanted us all to sit together, so i've been moving offices...but just down the hall. simple enough right? wrong! It took them nearly 24 hours just to switch my ip address down the hall and get my computer working again, and it will take at least a week (if i'm lucky) to move my phone down the hall.

Welcome to iphone

To celebrate emily's entrance into the medschool world today and lack of personal life I will make a list for her of my top 10 favorite iphone apps since she just got one this weekend. If you have anything to add (for my own personal gain) please comment.

10. Traffic - you wont need this since you dont have a car
9.Cube runner - its not that awesome, but it shows off how cool the iphones are well
8. Shazam - Hear a sweet song on the radio that you have to have? this will identify the song
7. The weather channel - i know iphone comes with its own weather thing, but this is more informative
6. cross light- free crossword puzzles
5.daily puppy- just has a picture of a cute puppy each day
4. urban spoon - where to eat anywhere and any time
3. ScoreCenter - ESPN's sports score finder. Every sport, every team, every girl needs this
2.wikipanion - helps you know everything all the time
1.open table - its what it sounds like

some others because my list is really more than 10 but i already numbered everything
* labyrinth
*ebay
*phoneflix
*multiconvert
*scramboni

Weekend in wisconsin

Peter and i flew out to Wisconsin Thursday night and headed out to meet up with 2 of peter's friends and will. We first went to this bar that had lots of veggie food, but more importantly really delicious beer. They all directed me to get a new glaurus beer, so i picked a delish apricot one. I had many then we set out on a mission to find karaoke for will who was actually doing fine without the backup music. We couldnt find any, but we did find a dance bar with sweet 90's music, which to wisconsin was actually just current music. They played songs such as "the humpty hump" and "intergalactic". We then danced our way over to wolsky's which evidently is known for a good end of the night bar. I think i bought two pitchers of local beers and had a marvelous time. I would like to note that the entire city smells like garbage. I'm not even joking. its disgusting. (you may remember that i once blogged about kaukona the smelliest city in the world, milwaukee wasnt as bad, but still noticeably smelly)

The rest of the weekend was spent in the middle of a field in the middle of wisconsin watching a whole lotta frisbee. But it was fun to meet peter's friends.

I'm glad to be back in this time zone.

My long weekend starts soon!

in just a few hours peter and i will be on our way to wisconsin for a long weekend. I get to see Will, T-Bone, and Bare! and meet a bunch of peter's college friends and watch waaaaaaaay too much frisbee.

youuuuuuuuuuuuuk

presents

I got some great presents for my birthday. One of which was from the one and only Todd S. I think Connor C will agree with me that Todd is quite the creative and awesome present giver. Todd gave me a 70's Carl Yastrzemski baseball card! How cool is that??? I think I may go through my old sox cards and see if i have any other frame worthy (clearly not nearly as cool) cards so I can make a nice display to hang up with the fenway poster! I'm so excited about this if you cant tell :)

News, Cheese, and Chocolate

This weekend I met up with Jessica and Robbie to go to the newseum for the first time. We ended up spending 3 hours there but definitely have more to see, plus the cafeteria looked good. The best exhibit in my opinion was a room with pull out drawers with old newspapers that highlighted the best headlines by year. It was well put together, and very interesting. There was even an entire newspaper devoted to divorces where they published who was getting divorced. That was in the early 1900's so they had less divorce than now, now i doubt it could all fit into one magazine!

I also went with Charlotte and Jessica to the melting pot for one cheese and two chocolate dishes. Peter was out of town and Levi and Robbie hate the melting pot (because they are totally crazy). It was a fun girls night and the melting pot is beyond awesome. I had never had any of the flavors we got and they are my new favorites, the cheddar one and the chocolate smores. mmmmmmm. I cant wait to go back :)

Someday

I will open a restaurant where the vegetarian options are never mushroom or asparagus.

Seriously though, I dont know where it was ever written that all vegetarians love that stuff, but i am certainly not a member of that club. blech

Funny People

I of course saw funny people on opening day. From the commercials we all knew there would be a serious side to this dark comedy, but there was a whole extra level of seriousness that I didnt see coming. They actually did a really good job mixing serious tones with comedy.

One thing is for sure, they named the comedy well. I just want to sit in a room with those people forever. Basically Maude and Iris apatow are very lucky to be born into such a network of family friends.

If the name of my blog tells you anything (hint its a modified quote from happy guilmore) I love adam sandler. I was so excited to see his comedic style changing with the times. It took him a really long time to catch up. I dont think he's fully there yet though. Sorry but funny noises and faces and rough comedy just dont do it anymore. Just stick to Judd's script, he knows whats funny.

Facebook gets creepy

Did anyone notice that the recent list of suggested friends now includes people that you dont share any contacts with? Mine has a bunch that I have zero contacts with on facebook, but i do know from various parties or living in the same building etc. The first time it happened I thought it might have been a coincidence, but it just keeps happening. Infact there are few people they suggest I friend who have no contacts in common that I dont know! Stop being a stalker facebook!!!

Sox In Baltimore

During my weekend visit with friends in baltimore, one of the things we did was go to the Red Sox/O's Game. Sox kicked butt, naturally. When I arrived at Chris's house I got a warm welcome..."oh good, you are here, we need another person on our flip cup team". I didnt do as bad as I thought I would :)

We had a fun section organized by Chris's roommate of about 50 new englanders, but mostly RI. It was a lot of fun to see the sox for a 5th time this season. My guy, jacoby stole as usual. And that new kid, josh reddick did great, At least two doubles, and by the end of the game Victor martinez started to step it up.

Sunday before heading home we stopped at THE WORST baskin robbins ever. They had empty cartons sitting out of most flavors, and when we asked for one that looked like it had a little we were told they didnt have enough to serve. We ended up with the most freezer burned mint chip ever. Ashley was told they had no cones, and Rebbecca went last and got a cup of ice cream, and once she was served she found out there were no spoons!!! seriously?