Try the grey stuff, its delicious, dont believe me? ask the Dishes!!

They can sing, they can dance...after all this is france!

ok ok i'll stop.

So this holiday season Peter and I totally rocked the gift giving to eachother. I got him a PS3 with the Move thing, and he gave me a Sodastream (awesome), some lily pulitzer stuff, and a bluray of Beauty and the Beast (the title makes sense now doesnt it)

Last night over a glass of homemade bubbly orange flavored water we watched beauty and the beast. It turns out peter had never seen it before!!! Crazy! Do you remember the first time you saw it, and were AMAZED by the graphics in the ballroom scene at the end? I do. I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped at how realistic the chandelier and columns looked. We looked it up and it turns out Pixar made that. Of course pixar makes all things awesome. Anyway I'll probably be watching beauty and the beast over and over again for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is moving day!!

You know what movie never gets old?

Tommy Boy! We watched that last night since it was on TV, and it was just as funny as usual. I think it helps everyone that watches with me that I can quote the entire movie, and do so just seconds before they deliver the line and then laugh hysterically when the line is just as funny as I remembered.

Awesome move.

Iphone

So i've had an iphone for about 3 years, I think i blogged about my efforts getting it way back when. Its been very good to me, and only recently started giving me problems. Problems such as not charging every time when plugged in (making it no longer a wireless phone), Freezing when opening apps and kicking me back out to the home screen, and taking a long time to do just about anything. I decided that while it was only a 3G I was going to try upgrading the OS to 4.2...thats where everything fell apart.

I plugged it in to sync and it froze up, I restarted the sync and miraculously it completed. Now time for the upgrade! I downloaded 4.2 which took maybe 2 hours, and then it was time to load it on the phone....Everything started out ok and while the progress bar was moving slowly it appeared to still be moving. I went to sleep assuming it would finish over night and when I woke up my phone would be good as new.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I woke up to find an error message on my computer and my iphone totally dead minus a picture indicating that I plug the iphone into itunes (which it already was). I unplugged it and plugged it back in.....nothing. The phone was dead. I quickly made an apt at the apple store's genius bar to see if they had any tricks up their sleeves. They made a few attempts at restoring the system, but nothing worked. There was nothing to do but buy a new iphone 4. I cant say I was disappointed. I really wanted one, but I couldnt justify buying one while my other phone was working almost perfectly well. So this evening was a draw...my phone was dead but I got to walk away with a brand new phone and a few less bucks in my pocket.

Ligers!

Remember in 2004 when Napoleon Dynamite came out and Ligers were the cool thing? Well I watched a show on the natgeo station last night on Ligers and they are scary creatures! They are GIANT, and can kill anything. Its confusing why people would continue breading them. I feel like they are a bigger threat of taking over the world than Robots and Zombies combined!

See how much bigger this animal is than the tiger?


And then for refrence take a look at this animal compared to a human:


Watch out people! Dont say I didnt warn you!

Zumba!

I went to Zumba last night for my first time! Emily brought me to her gym as her guest, and it was awesome. At first I was a little nervous b/c the second the class started the teacher started in dancing without any instruction. It took me a little bit to get use to that kind of class where you just watch and follow with no verbal instruction, but it was a ton of fun! I cant wait to go again. I looked absolutely ridiculous b/c i was always a step behind, but thats ok....except for the samba part where the rest of the class would be facing the left and i'd be facing the right. oh well.

I was going to post this post earlier today, but I got a little sidetracked with a 7 hour visit to the GW er all day. Fun times. But the reason I mention it, is that there was some seriously awesome people watching there. The ER is actually way too small for such a big hospital so they literally lined people up in the halls, and while we were there sitting in a private room (luckily), I heard yelling in the halls and ran to watch. It was two patients that were placed next to eachother. They started brawling, and they had to call security and the police came running in. Unfortunately the police were effective and they split up the two and the fighting ended.

8 Cups a day???

So as you all know, we are supposed to drink 8-10 glasses of water a day. A glass being 8 fluid ounces. Recently I have actually been trying to reach that goal and its MUCH harder than you'd expect. The biggest problem is that I dont like water, so instead of plain water i'm doing sparkling water or flat water with a flavor mixed in. I'm not sure if either of those count, but for the past 2 days I've made it to 8 glasses! Its been tough, but I powered through and made it. The other problem besides not liking water, is that there is no tap water at work I can drink. The sinks are all nasty and none of which have filters. Also, the fridge is so far. All i have are the warm bottles of deer park water that i brought in and have sitting by my desk :(

Kale Chips!

Sarah has a wonderful food blog, but she puts more effort into cooking than I do, so I always wish I could try making what she makes but never do. One recipe she tried stuck in my mind though and I finally tried it last night! Kale Chips! Couldnt be easier! Its my new favorite healthy snack! I even brought in to work today to snack on. Delish!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I realize that most of you wont have seen this yet, so I'll try not to spoil anything. although you should have read the book and therefore wont be surprised by anything. We went opening day and patiently waited in line for about an hour and a half, but it was worth it b/c we got the best seats in the theater.

The movie was alright. It wasnt as good as I had hoped, but i had extremely high hopes. Part of the problem was that I did not refresh myself about the story before I went, another problem is that i'm 28 and its aimed to a much younger crowd (alhough they easily could have made it for an older crowd without changing the story), the third problem were the numerous appearances of giant snakes that slithered around and darted out at you taking up the whole screen. I had to close my eyes at some points and have peter tell me when the snake was gone. Indiana Jones and I are much alike in that respect. The last problem was that the middle of the book was very slow and I was kinda bored for a bit while reading it anyway, and thats what is in this movie. I think that the next movie will also enhance this one since it brings closure.

Trivia Night

Last night Joe and I were joined by Alan and Peter at trivia night. The questions were super hard so we got about the same score that we usually do...but peter and alan were super helpful and should come more often (are you reading this guys?).

They asked for team names to be in the theme of the US's friendship with asia, so we picked the team name to be "mud grass horse" which I think is pretty funny, and if you dont understand go look it up. This was all Alan's idea. He's our team expert on all that stuff.

In trivia, when you dont know the answer to a question you try and think of a funny answer, and if its super funny they will read it aloud as an example of a wrong answer. They've never read our answer before....until last night that is. The question was who was the lawyer from the scopes trial that died a few days later. Our answer...Ronnie Deuitch (sp?). Everyone laughed. We are so funny.

Weekend fun

a while ago the salesman at best buy introduced me to the term starcraft-widow, but I wonder if the term election-widow exists? If so thats what I am. Every two years I get left alone for a week to a month depending on the situation, and this week my friends is the week i'm alone :( so go vote!

Sat Doug and I went to the rally...you know which one i'm talking about. We got there at 11 and wore lots of layers. The layers was a mistake b/c it was so hot and there was nowhere really to put the layers we weren't wearing. My favorite part??? a three way tie between the Mythbusters jump, Ozzy, and R2D2. My least favorite part? Kid Rock and Cheryl Crow. WTF. Who decided they fit in with the rally? I'm pretty sure as soon as they started singing their lame song everyone stopped paying attention and started cheering for people to climb higher in the trees. Speaking of which i'm SHOCKED noone got badly hurt falling out of the really high trees.

Sat night Diana, Doug, Katie, and I were all members of the best air band ever. So good that we needed no name. I was the keytarist of course. Most important instrument in a band. I tried teasing my hair like vixen, but to my surprise my hair didnt tease that well. I need to work on it for next time. there were lots of combs and lots of hairspray, but it turns out that my hair just does what it wants to do.

And Congrats to MA's newest lawyers Emily and Chris!!

Wasps

At the rally on sat steven colbert joked about releasing fear bees, but i'm starting to think it wasnt a joke. Monday I was standing IN MY OFFICE and all of a sudden i felt a sharp pain on my knee. I rolled up my pants to see what was up to find a swolen painful spot, and then a second prick. wtf. I rolled my pants up farther to find a wasp stinging me multiple times! WTF. What is the chance a wasp crawls up your pants indoors in the fall to sting you! Jerks!

here is a picture of my knee swolen, but not at its worst point :(

argh

vibe test all day (hopefully not really all day) Will post about rally and halloween later

Me first and the gimmie gimmies

Last night I went to the me first and the gimmie gimmies show with none other than Joe of course.

We skipped the first opening band, and came late for the second. The crowd seemed to know the second, but in my old age I guess I dont know what these young kids are listening to anymore. Actually I was surprised anyone is picking up on new punk bands anymore, thats so last decade (or even the decade before).

Me first came out strong. Joe and I thought the lead singer spike looked like a skinny Elton John with his white suit and haircut, but later another band member (fat mike i think, i couldnt really see over the db infront of me) described his haircut as more of a lesbian hitler haircut. Someone in the crowed yelled "you suck" to which they responded "dude, we are me first and the gimmie gimmies, we are NO ONES favorite band, but how can you not like us? YOU suck". There was a lot more amusing conversation among the band between every song. They played a lot of the ones I love and a few I hadnt heard before (but just because i've been slacking on some of their cds). It was a very entertaining show and I'd definitely go see them again (although i hope they come on a weekend next time)

Just a typical Tuesday night

Peter surprised me and took me out to a super delicious dinner at Eventide last night. When we got home we watched Glee (by my request clearly) and it was an awesome episode. Not only was it exclusively music from Rocky Horror, but John Stamos came back and even sang a song! It was great, and I hope to see a lot more of John Stamos.

Shots Shots Shots Shots, Everybody!

Katie and Rob got married this weekend at the Naval academy. It was a beautiful wedding followed by a fun party and a fun after party. The reception was at the hotel where that bar Pussers is (pronounce it however you want) so there were Painkiller drinks flowing freely, and boy are they delicious!

Leslie and Sarah were both in town for the wedding which was very fun, its always great to have them here! Sarah even lucked out and caught the bouquet at the wedding, so it looks like her wedding will be the next one ;)

It was a fun weekend, and i'm very tired today

The Better Half

Joe and I reclaimed our team name at trivia last night (someone else stole it the other week! Jerks!). We didnt do very well at all, mainly because an entire round was about what college went with what mascot, and basically beyond the Boston College Eagles I was at a complete loss. My big contributions to the night were knowing who wrote the 2004 album "hopes and fears" (keane), and Who was the Queen of Disco (Donna Summers...thank you SNL). We really need some team members who arent engineers to balance things out. We didnt even get the one science question of the night (what is the one letter symbol for Tungston...we guessed T, turns out its W). Oh well, maybe next week :(

Because Todd Requested it

Joe and I went to see the Thermals this weekend. I cant remember if this is my 3rd or 4th time seeing them.

The first opening band was an Irish Band who sang songs in Korean. I am not kidding. Ok so they had English songs too, but the Korean songs are weird right? Joe had looked them up ahead of time and decided their music wasn't very good. At the show however, they didn't sound too bad. We decided that the black cat had all sorts of levels off esp since you couldn't hear any of the stringed instruments through the speakers...evidently this made the band sound better.

The middle band was less than memorable.

Then came the thermals. They were great. As Joe points out their best CD is still The Body The Blood The Machine. Luckily they played a whole bunch of those songs. The entire audience got really into it which is always fun (although to joe's dismay no mosh pit). Evidently they came out with a new CD this sept, so since I did not know it existed I could not listen to it ahead of time. I was very nervous about this b/c who likes to be at a concert where they play all their new stuff, and noone knows it resulting in super low audience energy and possibly Sucky new songs. They only played a few of their new songs, and always announced it before they played it so you'd get in listening mode. I really liked the new songs and am willing to give them a chance to see if they can grow on me (still not as good as TBTBTM). The Drummer, who i think is fairly new, was hilarious. As every song was starting he'd stand up and pump his fist or something to get everyone going. Also he was wearing a shirt with a skeleton on it...always funny.

All in all a great show, and I'd recommend seeing them if you get the chance. Todd, looks like nov 15th they are going to be in san fran!

Physique 57

Last night Diana and I took the free physique 57 trial class that Sarah notified us about. It turned out to be a lot of fun! The teachers were really good and helpful, and the class was challenging but fun! It was a nice mix of aerobics and Pilates. I highly recommend trying this if you get a chance (which for now I think might just be my NYC friends since it hasn't officially come here yet). Here is the big question...do i buy the videos? it looks like they only sell it in a pack of 3 with the ball for 60 bucks....is that too much?

Martin Star Sighting!

As the new year of TV begins peter and I have been tivoing a lot of new ones to give a shot. Most of which ended up sucking, and only a few were ok enough to give a second chance at some point.

Anyway, one of the shows that we Tivoed was the new Hawaii Five-0 exclusively because Jin from Lost is on it and I love him. We started watching the show, and its totally not the type of show i like and i knew that going into it...but a few scenes into it they go to their computer specialist person and who is it??? Martin Star! awesometown! I was so excited that I watched the entire rest of the episode! If he's on it again I'd watch again...otherwise, sorry Jin :(

Last malaria pill!

to prevent malaria I had to take a whole lot of giant malaria pills, and I just took the last one! yay! I mean i guess there were no side effects, and they seem to have worked, but If there were any more you know i'd start forgetting to take them. so yay for it being done without me missing one

Lions!

As I mentioned before, we went on Safari for the second half of the trip to the Ngala private game park right next to kruger national park. The middle of the days get pretty hot even though its still spring there, so everyone wakes up at 4:30 am to go on a morning drive, hang by the pool mid day, and then go out again on an evening drive. Before the last evening drive our goal was to see lions, since the previous lion sighting had been pretty far away and we needed a better one. Luckily while we were out on the drive, another ranger went over the intercom evidently to say that lion tracks had been found and they had located a male and a female in the river bed. We headed over there, and found the lions just as the sun was going down. The lady lion stayed a little farther away so we didn't get any great photos of her, but the male just sat there with us


It became quite dark, and we decided to head back to the lodge for dinner. We wound our way almost out of the reeds , and were about to go through the last clump only about 3 or 4 yards away from the danger when....vroom, vroom....the tires were spinning but we weren't moving. We were beached.

This was behind us

and he was hungry

We were told at the start of the week never to leave the car around the cats. but clearly someone needed to get out. The ranger and tracker got out and tried to dig us out. That didnt work. Another land rover drove by and tried nudging us out. That didnt work.

Finally another ranger car came out with rope, but we didnt budge. Slowly we had to leave our safe vehicle and walk to the empty one so they could jack up our car and get it out.

We were finally free!

Penguins! (and babboons)

Our last day in cape town we took a drive down to the Cape of Good Hope. On the way there we stopped at a beach to see a penguin colony. If you know me at all you know how much I love penguins, so it was awesome.

Just check out how in love these guys are :

And how can you not love their walk:


As we continued on we came across a traffic jam caused by a whole group of Baboons! We were told to lock our doors b/c this might happen:

The best part was the adorable baby baboons!!!:

speaking of those jerky baboons, lets fast forward a bit to the safari. We each had our own little huts with very basic locking mechanisims, and we were told to keep them locked to keep out "bush criminals"...well we locked the doors at every possible moment, but the bush criminals broke in TWICE! They ate all the snacks I was traveling with!! They did leave one individual packet of nutella, but even that had thier teeth marks in it. Jerks.

I'm Back From South Africa

I had an amazing trip which will take more than one blog posting.I'll do it in chronological order Robben's island, penguins, baboons, and then lions.

For our first part of the trip we stayed in Cape Town and got to tour around a little bit. Our first stop (well...after shopping) was to Robben's Island. And no, we didnt just go b/c we saw it in Invictus. The tour was very interesting. First you get on a bus where one of the former political prisoners gave you a tour of the whole island and a little about the pre apartheid time on the island with the leper colony etc. The island was beautiful, it was so hard to imagine it being used for such terrible purposes. The bus we took had written down the side "the journey is never long when freedom is the destination"

Then we got dropped off at the jail where another former prisoner showed us the terrible living conditions and dining hall etc. The last stop was to Nelson Mandela's cell that he lived in for 18 years. It was miserable! Even the dog kennels we saw earlier on the tour were bigger. Its just amazing to me that he could be released from prison and still have such a positive outlook, and to teach people never to forget, but to forgive.

Blog Frequency

I will be taking a short break from blogging for the next week and a half. On friday I head out to South Africa and i'll be surprised if i have the opportunity to blog. If i get a chance i'll try and post some pictures, but its doubtful.

I'm prepared for my series of long flights with about 7 movies queued up on my ipad...we've got bottle rocket, julie and julia, the informant, walk hard, greenberg, date night, and youth in revolt, along with some episodes of flight of the conchords. should be a fun trip! I think i'm most excited to see the penguins while in cape town, but thats mainly b/c most of hte animals on the safari portion of the trip already scare me.

Should be fun! see you in 2 weeks.

Wisconsin weekend

I'm back from a long weekend in Wisconsin for Mike and Tristan's wedding. The wedding was beautiful.

We arrived on thursday night, and met up with Jessica and Robbie friday morning to go sight seeing. We started the day with an "early" lunch (early only by midwest time zones, but noon back on the coast) at some brewpub where we had the most delicious raspberry beer. We continued on to a tour of the Pabst mansion. We took the mansion tour which was lead by this very old lady. In the "medical things and quackeries" room, the tour guide decided to read from a pamphlet in the room that she had never seen before and begins to read "dr. mcfilthy's crotch powder" and got so embarassed that she punched jessica in the arm exlaiming "i cant believe i read that outloud!"

We then moved on to the lakefront brewery, which is the first certified organic brewery. They had the best pumpkin beer that i've ever tried. We then moved on to bar louie to cash in on our free drink coupons. We ordered a drink called the smore, and they had run out of marshmallows so she gave us "cholives" in our drinks! We'd never had them before, but they were delicious...I say this in the past tense b/c we looked them up later and the company closed down..so we possibly ate the last cholives in existence. They are chocolate truffles in the shape of olives if you were wondering. delicious!

The Sound of Music

Last night we went to see the sound of music at wolf trap. its my all time favorite movie, so i was super excited to see the show. It was very different from the movie which surprised me a lot.
We packed a great picnic and the smartest thing we did all night was rent lounge chairs from wolftrap. I dont know how i've made it through other shows there without it! I cant wait to see another show there :)

Things I didnt have saturday that I have today

FOUR hubcaps, TWO sun visors, TWO same color rear view mirrors, TWO cup holders, and a bunch of other frills. Oh yeah, and the brand new hybrid car to go with it! I love it :) call me a hippie if you want, but my car no doubt gets better mileage than yours :)

Dance Stuff at the Kennedy Center

Last night 4 of us went to a performance at the kennedy center. I forget what its called, but it was 19 different acts showing the different types of Chinese dances. Some of them were very nice. My favorite was called the "chopstick zest" dance. Each dancer held a handful of chopsticks in each hand, and as he danced the chopsticks made cool noises. There was one odd thing about this though, most the dancers practice Falun Gong, and they subtly let you know at first, but then by the end they had a dance that kinda was like west side story with dance fighting showing all the injustices they have had to face. I really dont know anything about falun gong and feel like i've only seen one side of the story at this point. I'll have to read up on what has been going on. At least it peaked my curiosity i guess.

Cape Cod Weekend

I spent the weekend in cape cod and had a great time. The main highlight was that i'm awesome at golf. I took 2 lessons and then beat everyone at mini golf! i'd say the lessons paid off.

my flight home was a different story...it was delayed FIVE hours, and since i got to the airport 1 hour ahead of time i sat there for 6 hours alone :( The one highlight of the night was that one of the other travelers got a little angry at the wait and lashed out verbally at the gate agents, which resulted in everyone knowing he was drunk and him getting arrested. so that took up about 20 min of the 6 hours. not bad.

I'm so tired today :(

Weeds is back

The season premier of weeds was last night and it was terrific. They managed to pick up right where they left off and run with it. not that much of an eventful episode last night, but lots of promise for the rest of the season! I'm a little sad it doesnt look like alanis moresette will be in too many more episodes (if any) :( Yay for a new season!

Crush

This weekend for Jessica's early birthday party a whole bunch of us went to a new wine bar in annapolis called crush. It was awesome. At first some of us were unsure about the choice b/c the dinner menu was so small, but once we got there all worries went away. The wine menu was extensive, the beer menu was imported, and the cheese menu was amazing.

I got made fun of for immediately ordering a cheese plate(to share with the table) and a cheese sandwich. I probably could have done without the sandwich. for my cheese trio I got a soft blue cheese, a very ripe Camembert, and some lamb cheese (which was later clarified to be sheep cheese)

For wine I of course got a reisling followed by a "crushito" which was basically crushed fruit, maybe some oj or something and wine served in a highball glass.

For dessert we ordered a plate of truffles, one per person (except charlotte since levi stole hers). I got the peanutbutter dark chocolate one and it was beyond delicious. I think they must have been home made.

The one thing I didnt try since they only offered it for red wine and not white was the tasting bar. You got a pre paid credit card to bring up, and its like being behind the bar. Each wine bottle is pneumatically hooked up to a tap (right jessica?) and it measures how much you pour for yourself. That way you can taste really really nice wine without having to pay for an entire bottle (since they dont usually serve that kind of stuff by the glass). I hope they end up making one for white wines too :)

Odds and Ends

Thanks to Robbie and Jessica I got a great (10 minute) phone call last night to hear something corperate's Konstentine. It was terrific and I was sad that I wasnt at the show too. Next time ;) Hey, if Andrew goes on a touring kick anything like he did with Jack's mannequin they will be back a few more times over the next two years.

I also tried to make my FIRST skymall purchase last night. I love skymall very much, and when I fly the first thing I do is reach into the pocket and peruse skymall, but I have never bought anything before. Well my Ipad arrived last night and I need a case for it to protect it, and in my trip to boston last weekend I saw a pretty case and thought i'd order it. I put through the order and hit purchase and then the page flipped out. I waited to see if my credit card got charged, and since it didnt I'll try again today.

New England Kinda Weekend

So I went to Boston this weekend for Emily's Bridal Shower #1 and her Bachelorette party. We had a lot of fun, and ate so much delicious food, but the part that stands out in my mind the most happened sat night at the bachelorette party. We had just gotten to Grand Canal (bar) to see Bear Fight (awesome cover band). One of emily's bridesmaids really wanted to be in the front row the entire time, so periodically emily would agree to go up with her...one time though something special happened. There was a guy all the way in the front who was focusing really hard on the band, and dancing at them. He wasnt getting their attention and realized he had to pick up his game. It started with him lifting up his shirt for them, that was a little odd. a few minutes later he did the old jump up and fall down trying to do a split. well THAT started getting thier attention. He continued for the entire rest of the song attempting splits, spins, shirt lifts...you name it he did it. It was the weirdest thing i've ever seen. Us girls kept wondering "does he know them and is just being silly?" until the singer, during an instrumental part goes "someone better be documenting whats going on up here, wtf dude"...nope clearly just a random person. awesome

Sunday My mom sister and I went shopping, and we are now the proud owners of stylish clothes such as kakhi pants that zip off at the knee to be shorts, and super lightweight shirts with pockets everywhere. Watch out South Africa, the Safran's travel in style, and we'll be there in a month!!!

my car is falling appart

litterally.

I noticed that some of my tires needed a little air in them recently, but nothing too urgent, and none that stood out more than others. Then on monday towards the end of the day, jim calls me to tell me that my front tire "looks a little low". Yeah yeah yeah, i knew that. Well then at the end of the day when I went out to my car it was completely and totally flat. Chris came out to help me change the tire (since i'm not strong enough to loosen the bolts) and once we removed the tire we noticed something a little off, the entire inner side of the tire was shredded the entire way around. No wonder it was flat! I walked around to the passenger side and that tire was heading down the same path. awesome

So today I went to VW and had them look at everything b/c I suspected while the alignment was certainly off, there was probably something else up. So I got the oil changed and got them to look at all my belts, breaks, etc. an hour later they let me know that my right front axle boot was totally shredded and that the axle was jiggling around. well that sounds good doesnt it? Needless to say I got that changed, bought new tires, got everything re-aligned, and am back on the road! I sure wish my office were closer to public transportation!

G-Force **SPOILERS**

So sunday night we caught the end of G-Force. Yes, the movie with CGI hamsters. The movie was.....Hillarious. Ok i'll admit I was the only one laughing, but still I was totally amused. I am also willing to admit that in no way was it a good movie, but it was so bad that it was funny. What I cant understand is how they got Nick Cage (ok maybe i get that one), penelope cruz, Tracy Morgan, Zack Galifinakis, Will Arnet, and a few other celebs to agree to this movie.

Ok so here is the spoiler....The one BIG hole in the movie comes at the end when Zack admits to the hamsters that they are infact NOT genetically engineered animals and they are NOT CIA special forces or whatever. That part i'm ok with, but then he goes on to tell them they are just normal hamsters.....BUT HE CAN STILL TALK TO THEM, they never explain that. Also when the hamsters rally and remind themselves that even if they arent genetically engineered they tell themselves the facts...That they went to and graduated west point correspondance school.....WHAT? But my confusion passes when all the appliances come to life in the big battle scene at the end.

Great Movie

Best. Weekend.Ever

27 Ended with diamonds, and 28 started with lots of celebrations.

Leslie and Sarah were both in town too, which was exciting

My birthday celebration consisted of renting a (short) bus and going wine tasting at 3 vineyards in VA.

1. The Three Fox Vineyards - Very beautiful property. If you go here, you should picknic outside at thier tables, but thier wine isnt all that good ,so dont make this your only stop. The best thing i could say about one wine was "this tastes like manichewitz" to which laura and peter were quick to point out that wasnt a good thing.

2. Barrel Oak Winery - This was the most delicious one. Even the red wines were pretty good (and I dont like red wine). They also had nice tables indoors for eatting lunch which was nice since it was SO hot that day.

3. LaGrange Winery- This one had pretty good wines too, and heavy air conditioning indoors, delicious sangria, and beautiful places to sit outdoors in the shade.

also it should be noted that Jessica was the MVP for bringing the dramamine so I didnt get motion sick :)

A great weekend all around :)

SO excited

Birthday week is nearing the best day of the year!!! Tomorrow I gear up by taking the day off work and sitting by the pool all day, while leslie busses her way to DC to come join me, followed later in the day by sarah! ahhhhhhhh! Cant wait!

Trivia Night

Last night was a poor showing at trivia. Just Joe and I showed up. That is half, or less than half the usual team. The usual team usually scores just below 60 points (out of the possible 80) which puts us right in the middle of the trivia night teams. We feel pretty good about this since we dont cheat, and at least half the team are engineers so we are screwed when it comes to history questions or obscure sports facts(both are where peter comes in when he shows up).

Anyway, back to last night. Joe and I decided to go even though it was going to be a team of two. We called our team "the better half" and played our best. We came out with 46 points! Thats more than 50% which means that we are totally pulling our weight in trivia night and its the other players that really only need to fill in less than half and clearly arent ;) Who knew that Joe and I were the trivia night super stars! Also we didnt get the lowest score of the night so we felt good about that too.

Movies!

Out of the two new movies I saw this weekend one was the clear winner.

The not winner was Hot Tub Time Machine. It was alright, and definitely could have been worse...but it also could have been MUCH better, and i was expecting a lot more. The movie was only a little funny, but sorta amusing, and i'm glad I eventually saw it but not in the theater.

The winner was Inception. it was awesome. It covered TWO of my favorite categories of movies! Category 1. Leonardo Dicaprio (yes he is his own genre). He was so good and did not disappoint. There were multiple times that he subtly referenced his older movies that I totally picked up on (OK I'm sure he wasn't trying), but there was him strapped to the bed like in Marvin's room, and him holding the vile of poison between his two fingers then hiding it in his hand like in Romeo and Juliet. category 2. Mind bender. This movie definitely kept you thinking throughout the movie and then after you left. All I can say is that you should certainly go see it! And see it in the theater for sure. So good. I cant wait to see it again.

Dispicable Me

We saw that movie last night. I didn't have high hopes, but felt it would at the least be amusing. It surprised me by being much better than expected! All the characters were great, and it was fun since they are all voices of actors I like. If you have free time and looking for something to do, go see this movie.

There is a trend

of me not liking things other people like. We've discussed this before in previous blog posts. The newest one that i'm ready to spark outrage with is Mr. Show. Peter bought the entire series and makes me watch an episode or two every night. I do like david cross and i'm ok will bob odenkirk, and the other side actors i've seen on other things i like (jack black, sarah silverman, that random guy with a funny voice) so I was prepared to like the show. I can see why it might have been amusing when it first aired, but i'm just not enjoying it now. Its made me laugh out loud exactly once so far. Its just not my thing. I hope the rest of the series goes missing b/c i just looked up how many more episodes there are, and i've got about 20 more to go :(

Bumper Stickers

Today on my ride in I saw a sticker that says "my nephew is a marine" which got me thinking how distant can you be and still have a premade sticker for it? Like is there a "my brother in-law a marine" a sticker? or how about "this one kid I once knew is a marine"?

Where Didnt we go this weekend?

This weekend Andreea was in town from Philly and looking for the makings of a fun weekend, and I don't think we disappointed. We met up at Churchkey first where it was incredibly hot (even hotter than it was outside) which forced us to cut that visit short, but that's ok b/c next on the list thanks to Amit was the 9:30 club to dance to Madonna vs Lady Gaga vs MIA. And dance we did. I did find out that the 9:30 club has a shoes policy after someone told on me, so that was mildly annoying. Peter only lasted a short while before leaving 930, but the rest of us stayed until we could dance no more...and then it was on to nellies (the clear choice after madonna/gaga night).

On sat I decided to take andreea to cowgirl creamery for lunch. Good idea, except for the fact that they only make sandwiches in the AM and dont replenish so the meat eaters in the group were out of luck. Sat evening it was levante's and brickskeller for a night of drunk dials and delicious beers.

Sunday it was off to RFD (since most other bars in chinatown lost power) to watch the world cup. I was rooting for netherlands, but really didnt care either way.

All in all it was a fun weekend

Annoyingly inconsistant

So I left my apt the same time today and tuesday, both for early meetings. Tuesday I didnt make it in until 9:30, but today I made it in by 8:30. WTF. This is a general occurrence for me, its super hard to plan what time to leave to make it in for an early meeting. Luckily on tuesday I had a call in number so I could call from the car stuck in traffic :( I still dont understand why the american recovery and reinvestment act has every "shovel ready" project going at once! Its almost like the government hates the environment since so many construction sites cause ridiculous traffic.

Too hot to blog!

So the 4th of july weekend went well. Spent Sat across the bridge with the mann-criss-farmers. Sunday we walked down to iwo jima for the fireworks. Monday We saw get him to the greek. It was just alright. I dont think it was a waste of time, but i'm sure glad i saw it in a matinee. The commercials made it seem way funnier.

Today peter left for a work trip, so 2 things come of this....1 I get to sleep on the diagonal and 2 every time i turn on the TV it will NOT be on some sports game! It will instead be on the Disney channel ;)

BIRTHDAY MONTH HAS BEGUN!

I know you are all equally as excited as I am :) I received my first birthday card last night (from my work) and would have gotten my first slice of bday cake today (from my work--but i skipped it). I think its fair to say, few people love their birthday as much as I do! The count down is on people!

The trick to good service at Indian Restaurants

Is to go without any boys :) You may recall that a while back I blogged about how we have so many indian restaurants in the neighborhood, but all with incredibly sucky service. Well, last night after getting our nails done, Diana and I went to Tandoori Nights. We had great service. Once We ordered pader khadai the guy goes "well thats ok, but get this masala dish, its the better dish". We were a bit skeptical, but ultimately decided to try it, and he was right it was delicious. I've never had friendlier and faster service at this particular restaurant. Just for comparison last time it took like 40 min between ordering and getting food and the table next to us in that time sat down ate and paid! wtf. Anyway now i know, take out with peter, sit down with lady friends :)

Outdoor Kinda Weekend

This weekend Kristin (a friend from highschool) was in town looking for apartments. We took a super long walk so she could see almost every neighborhood. We started in georgetown, walked up through dupont to kalorama, up to adams morgan, back down to U street, then over to logan circle and then almost to foggy bottom. Thats probably up there with the longest walks i've taken in DC, and certainly the longest in super hot weather!

Sunday peter and I went out to germantown to go blueberry picking! We now have 9 lbs of blueberries! I am going to make so many pies!

Stupid Truck

OK every morning on my way into work there is one turn that aggravates me. There are 2 left turn lanes that are super long, usually it takes about 2-3 light cycles to get through. Every day one or two jerkmobiles go up to the front and cut everyone off (although i rarely let them infront of me, other nicer people on the road let them in). Today it was so much worse. A giant truck pulled that move. The kind of truck that needs both lanes to make the sharp turn anyway. I was so angry that I took a picture with the intention of calling the "how am i driving" line. I've deicded not to call, but i'll post the picture anyway so you can get an idea for how much of an asshole this driver is.

Futurama!

Did anyone else watch last night?

Yes that's right, after a series of direct to home movies ending with a cliffhanger where this season picked up, its back! Thanks Comedy Central! It was pretty good too! We'll see how the rest of the season goes to see if its fully back, but from the 2 episodes last night its a good start :)

Also as much as I'm enjoying the world cup, its seriously interfering with my sleep :( I'm so tired! I didnt even watch any of the games last night. meh :(

Disney Hates Giving Things For Free

So a few months back we bought Toy Story and Toy Story 2 on Blu Ray. Both came with a card that said "One Free Ticket To Toy Story 3!!!". So we did what any pixar loving people would do, and saved those codes in an obvious location in our apt. Finally when it came time to use it we actually still had it and one hour before the show thought to redeem them. We went to the indicated website, and joined the disney club (of course they were going to require that). What happened next was the incredible, we had to jump through hoops for the next THIRTY minutes trying to figure out which page leads to the next and which new codes to use etc. It was RIDICULOUS. They couldnt have made it any more difficult. Finally we went down to the printer and printed out the tickets only to see "good for $8.50 worth of tickets"....WHAT DECADE DID DISNEY THINK THIS WAS? Even if we had seen TS3 on a normal screen we would have had to pay a combined additional 5 dollars since the base ticket now a days is 11 bucks. On top of that we decided to see it in 3D (not even imax 3D) and had to pay a combined additional 12 dollars!!!! Thats an entire extra ticket for a normal movie! I dont know who i'm more annoyed at, disney for being so cheap, or the theaters for charging such outrageous prices!!!!

Toy Story 3

Clearly I've already seen this movie. It was awesome. However, clearly I did not like it as much as the rest of the adults in the theater. Something would happen that referenced another movie or something and the adults would laugh as hard as they could, some even literally slapping their knees. It is unclear to me if they actually thought it was that funny, or if they wanted everyone else to know that they got the joke. I mean I was amused, but those particular parts weren't laugh out loud funny.

The end of the movie (without trying to spoil anything) was super sentimental, and I did my best not to cry. I kept telling myself, its just a movie and you cannot cry for a toy (those of you thinking its a spoiler, its not what you think). Anyway I highly recommend this movie!

Also, We did see it in 3D which is by no means necessary.

What a JAG pary

This weekend Leslie briefly flew through town and stayed just long enough for a little fun and a lot of pool time.

Sat night we decided to have a fiesta with us three, the farmers, and evan le gwinn. We made tamales and sangria (lots of sangria) and went down to the patio by the pool to eat. Not too long after we got there, we could see inside the party room to see that some amazon girls in cowboy hats and some michael bolton look alikes were having a party inside with lots of food and a keg. We stayed outside and were thinking eventually thier party would grow in size, but it plateaued pretty early. By 11 thier rental of the party room was over, and to noone's surprise most of the keg must have remained...so what did they do? They brought it out to the idiots sitting outside in 200 degree weather. They filled up our now empty sangria pitcher, and even hung out for a bit. They hung out long enough for us to find out they were all Jag's...literally.

US soccer game! Love the world cup

Getting Ready

For the new Starcraft to come out. Some people (probably the ones who have played before) are concerned with things like making sure your computer is up to speed for such high tech gaming. Others, like myself are more concerned with what name to use for war mode or battlenet or whatever. I've come up with something awesome if i do say so myself:

Princess Ray Ray Twinkle Toes McGillicuddy

I'm open to other suggestions though

I'm jumping on the hating vuvuzela bandwagon

I thought it was neat, and spirited, and fun. That is until I watched hour after hour after hour of the world cup. Last night was the final straw when we watched 2 tivoed games back to back. Finally halfway through the brazil korea game I had to leave the room (and go to bed) before my head exploded. Seriously guys, if you played it just during exciting parts it would mean so much more. There is NO need to constantly be playing it for 90 minutes straight! I'm surprised more fans dont pass out from vuvuzela exhaustion! I'm seriously considering wiring my tv sound through my laptop so that I can filter out the horns.

Why is the weekend so short?!

We went to cape cod for the weekend, and it was a very short trip. I am back at work today, and am so sore. Probably because in the 2 days I was there I went to the driving range twice, and went on two beach walks.

I wish that I could have spent more time there b/c it was overcast or rainy the whole time so I didnt get to do important things like lie down on the beach and get a tan, and go play mini golf. I guess that means I have to go back :)

Almost the weekend!

Last night was Bunko night! I could finally make it too which was cool. Its a once a month girls night/ gambling adventure which is basically just an excuse to hang out with friends. Everyone puts in 10 bucks, and the money is split between the person who wins the most games, and the person who loses the most games. Guess who lost the most??? Thats right, I was the biggest loser of the night!

on another note...only 4 hours till I begin my trip to Cape Cod for the weekend! cant wait!

Ladies Night

I went to see Sex And the City 2 with the ladies last night. I prepared myself for a terrible movie a little too well. I had set my expectations so low that I actually enjoyed watching. I mean dont get me wrong, it was terrible. However, I found myself laughing (at) the movie many times. One of the most amusing parts was the gentleman behind us. He was clearly dragged by his lady friend...although he seemed to know what was up with satc2. He added the "oh no she didnt" or loud gasp at inappropriate kisses, which helped with all the corny-ness of the movie.

The movie itself was poorly written, pretty offensive, and not that well acted. That being said, I recommend rounding up your girls and seeing the movie after a HH and good dinner.

Not what you want to come into first thing in the morning

Weekend Fun

Sorry I didnt blog yesterday, I know you were eagerly awaiting my blog post, but blogger was down :( I tried!

Sat (super bright and early) Team B.O.O.B. Raced again in the Race For The Cure. It was a smaller team than past years, but I think we all had a great time.

Sat night Julie and I went to Tallulah for some wine and cheese and dinner. It was great as usual. I cant wait to try the more casual but connected Eat Bar! We got beet ravioli which looked like human organs, but tasted much better.

Sunday was a relaxing pool day even though it was cloudy.

Anyway it was a low key and relaxing weekend (finally)! I wish it were still the weekend.

Valentines Day (in June)

So I watched the movie valentines day last night (while peter was out at hh of course). I was expecting a cute chick flick that was all sorts of sappy, but man was I wrong. It was an entertaining movie, so there was that. One thing that surprised me back when the trailers were out was how star studded the cast was. I figured it had to be awesome since so many people agreed to be in it. I was wrong. Also another surprise was that Ashton Kutcher was the best character in the movie! He was sweet and adorable and nice and not playing someone who gets laughs for being dumb.

Anyway, it was weird and I dont quite know what to make of it.

Great Weekend

I had a terrific weekend with the Gwinn-Mann-Criss-Holsteins.

For starters any weekend is off to a good start when you are playing rockband. I just cant wait for Robbie to get the beatles and green day rockbands too. I usually wimp out of singing but, maybe it was the special wine jessica made, or maybe it was just how comfortable I felt with good friends, but I actually sang....FOUR songs. crazy! What I learned is that I know every word of Eve6's inside out and Lit's My own worst enemy (actually who are we kidding, I know every word to every eve6 song), and it turns out that Dashboard Confessional and Social Distortion are much harder to sing than you'd imagine! I mean I made it through those songs, but it was rough.

Sunday started off a little rough. But once we made it to the eastern shore things were going well. The whole day was a blast, but one moment stands out as the clear funniest part which was clearly when Robbie tried to create a fireball out of the citronella candle, but failed miserably. If i try and tell this story, there is no way I could do it justice especially since what made it so hilarious was the immediate reactions from Levi and Bill. Although I think we can consider the citronella candle fireball myth BUSTED!

Lastly, last night i surprised peter with Super Mario Galxy 2, which is just as much fun as the first one was! Cant wait to play more tonight ;)

Jet Blue

Ok so it turns out that jet blue has been around for 10 years, and i'm just realizing how nice it is now. I think i tried to take it once and had a lot of delays and never tried again until this weekend.

Jet Blue has comfy seats, TV's at each seat where you can control your own channels and watch things like ghost busters (which of course I did). And on top of that they give out either chocolate chip cookies, or doritos munchie mix. Take that midwest airlines (yep, i'm looking at you leslie). Plus with jet blue you dont have to go to places like chicago or wisconsin, you can go to places like boston or the dominican republic.

I think the other reason I always resisted Jet Blue was that you have to go through dulles, which was a great experience this time. No traffic to get there, easy ride from the parking lot to the terminal. Super fast security, a brand new subway to take you to your terminals (although I miss the sand crawlers), and awesome food options in the terminal including but not limited to chipotle and auntie anns (two of my favorite things).

This chipotle I was informed by Ryan is the only one that serves breakfast, so on my return trip I checked it out and it looked ridiculous. They had breakfast burritos etc, which looks like normal burritos but with eggs and hash browns.

Back again

ok i just had my 4th trip out of dc in about 3 weeks and I'm ready to stay put for a long time. My sister graduated with her master's this weekend so that was fun. We had a nice party and ate delicious cake.

I only get a little down time in the form of tuesday night! Then plans and visitors and lots more fun :)

a whole lot of delicious

So as you all know I am a sucker for new candy. I've blogged about it many times, whether it be the new pieces, or flavored hershey kisses, I will try them all.

So this week my friends, I've found not one, but TWO new M&M flavors.

Monday at the Kwiki mart (i dont know, that little place by burger king) I found this:


Thats right, coconut m&m's. They were alright. I probably wont buy them again. They sort of tasted like Parrot Bay in Candy form.

Then today at cvs I found THIS:


Pretzel m&m's are delicious and addictive! I've eatten WAY too many today! I really like chocolate covered pretzels (which i think are better), but they always melt all over your hands (which always reminds me of mallrats, ew) So these little candies have the added bonus of melting in your mouth and not in your hand!

I couldnt be more tired

Since Tuesday I have driven from DC to NJ, from NJ to NYC, then back from NYC directly to work and I assume eventually I'll make it home. Some day.

the funeral was alright, but what was kinda cool was getting to the temple early and seeing the person I was named after's name all over the walls. In stained Glass in the main sanctuary, then the entire social hall was named after her. Very cool. Maybe someday I'll go back and look around more.

So i suppose when you get to work at 2 you should stay late, but I can barely keep my eyes open so chances of that happening are slim to none.

New York Weekend

I had a great time in ny at alexis's wedding! Alexis and Rob got married at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and it was beautiful. I may post later, not sure.

Back to ny in the am for less happy times.

mid game report...live blogging if you will

ok so it wont really be a live blog b/c its just going to be this post.

So we are in the midst of the celtics cavs game and I have some observations.

1. Who do they think they are advertising towards? Within 3 min I saw ads for Mike's Hard Lemonade (which i wont knock b/c its de...wait for it...lishous) and the WNBA.

2. The first hooters ad i've ever seen just came on. This ad involved the burger king, ronald mc donald, and wendy from wendy's....does hooters think its in the same food niche as those fast food restaurants? weird, dont know why you'd compare yourself like that

3. Lastly out of everyone on the court i've had a long discussion with myself, and a little with peter about who the most attractive player tonight is. For starters Rajon rondo wasnt really in the running, but paul pierce on the other hand came out as the winner in my mind.

Thoughts?

Boston Weekend

My weekend was a lot of fun! Reunion was great and not as awkward as you'd imagine. The highlight of my trip however was the redsox/yankees game at fenway park on sunday night. I'll be honest, going into it i was pretty sure we were going to lose, so you can imagine my surprise when we came out swinging and took the lead pretty fast.

I've seen the sox already twice this year and plenty other times in camden and nationals park, but there is something about watching them at fenway that makes it special. The sweet caroline sing along, the dirty water after the game, Wally dancing with his mother during the 7th inning stretch.....what? yes you read that right, Wally's mom made an appearance for mothers day. Also there is some added excitement to booing Jeter, Swisher, and A-Rod at the top of your lungs and not even being the loudest. My sister and I kept elbowing one another when we werent cheering or booing loud enough. Cant wait to go back to Fenway!

Weekend 2 of 4 weekends away

Tonight I leave for boston for my 10 year highschool reunion! I'm pretty excited! Did i tell you that winsor made it to #10 on forbes' list of the top 20 prep schools in america. not too shabby.

On an unrelated note, we went to the dc united vs kansas wizards game last night and Vamos united! it was their first win of the year! I think it was probably because the wizards goalie seemed to suck. I mean i dont know a ton about soccer, but i feel like I could have stopped the particular goals that went in.

Trains

Ok I know its not national train day yet, thats may 8th (from the hundreds of signs around me telling me this) but i'm going to blog about my love hate relationship with amtrak

Ok so at 7:30 this morning I hopped on a train to nyc for a day trip. The train originating from DC was great. I got a window seat with a plug for my computer and I even slept half the time. I was feeling pretty good about amrak and was even thinking that I should start taking it more often.

I arrived at Penn station a little early waiting for my evening 8pm train home on acela the "high speed" express train between ny and dc. You should know that I have taken the acela train once before in 2001 between dc and boston, and something happened to the train once we were en route that made it go SLOWER than a normal train. it was miserable. So here I am many years later willing to spend the extra money and give acela another try and what happens? So far my train will be 35 minutes late. WTF, at that rate i might as well have paid less and gotten to dc at the same time, not to mention there is a good chance my train will be delayed further. (as I typed that it delayed to 40 min late)

THIS is one of the many reasons trains will never do well in this country. Too bad too b/c when things go well I enjoy taking trains. (oh, did i mention that the train is also more expensive than flying) Also why do shady chinatown buses have wi-fi but the trains do not?

Orioles/Sox Game last night

Ok so the bad news is that the sox lost in extra innings last night, but the good news is that what happens when the orioles win is a total WTF moment. So As you all know I go to lots of orioles games every year, but I guess I hadnt seen an O's win in so long that I didnt know they played this ridiculously stupid song in total seriousness. Evidently its been happening for a couple of years. Also as soon as they won people froze for a second unsure what to do before jumping up high fiving eachother. Here is the terrible song

Interesting

I spent all season listening to caps fans taunting me about how the caps were doing so much better than the bruins (which they were). This is odd though since I do like the capitals and consider myself a fan of both teams. Anyway, since I dont want to be mean and say directly to those people what i'm about to write, i'm going to just post it on my blog instead....funny who is going on to the second round huh? That is all.

Video Blog day II

So last night Alan came over for the Usual tuesday night Lost viewing party, when to our surprise there was no new lost! What could we possibly do!!! It turns out watching old videos on youtube is always a good option. After showing him the shatner video from yesterday (which peter hated on) He goes "but have you seen the original", and really its too awesome not to share with you all:



I like the costumes, and I also like how the guys actually have literal bright eyes.

Weekend Fun

This weekend was a lot of fun. Peter and I drove up to baltimore to go to Clipper Citty Brewery (which has been re-branded to heavy seas). The lady giving the tour was crazy. Also there was another old guy on the tour who was there by himself and possibly high. he had a shirt from a utah brewery that said "bring some home to your wives", so at least he had a sense of humor. There were 6 beers to taste, and three were decent and the other three were awesome.

Last night when i was watching the simpsons (yes i still watch the new episodes) there was a montage of conserving electricity and using wind power and guess what song they used? Electric Six's Danger High Voltage! I was so excited, and wanted to put a video here for you to see, but there was none to be found. instead I heard about this on the radio today and its awesome:

Can I have a Do-over for the weekend

Any weekend that includes going to the ER is a pretty bad weekend. The good news is that the VA hospital's er is awesome and super efficient. what could have been an all night event only took 2 hours! Plus the Bare-Bones brought chocolate and ice cream over after which was awesome of them :)

We just got disc 1 of Undeclared (the tv show from 2001) and its impressive how many people I recognize. I knew that i'd recognize seth rogen and jay baruchel, but The girl from Dawson's creek, a girl from californication, pam from the office, superman from smallville were all spotted in the first episode! Oh and the voice of Jason Segel. The show is ok is far, but we'll see what the rest of the 1 season series has to offer.

Really einstein's in college park?

THIS was what you had in mind when I asked for capers? That's laughably stingy

Space News

All week i've been eagerly awaiting Barack's speech to nasa about our future. I was unable to walk over to Building 3 to watch the telecast since i'm swamped with work so I patiently waited to read a report of his speech. I kept going back to CNN to see if there were updates when I finally saw this link "Obama says he is committed to the future of NASA"...This is it, what I've been waiting for. I opened the article and....well this conversation with my co worker sums it up nicely

me: shortest article ever: Here
peter: oo i like all the details
me: i know, i was like thanks fucker, i clicked on the title b/c i wanted to know MORE details than the title...not exactly the same
peter: haha, article should have just said "EOM"

New England Sports!

So a couple of weeks ago peter and I attended a Red Sox/ Nats game and a Dc united/ New England Revolution game. NE won both! Go us.

Baseball:
The sox looked alright. I mean we beat the nats so it wasnt too big a feat. Wakefield came out first to pitch and did a great job. The game was going at a pretty fast pace, but then they brought out daisuke....what a waste of money he was. Remember the hype over him? remember the millions of dollars spent just to talk to him? Sure glad we did that...... The other disappointment about the game is that Jacoby Ellsbury, one of my favorites whose shirt i wear, has changed his number!!! WTF. Thanks Jacoby! now my shirt is dumb and out dated. Its bad enough that I have a Johnny Damon Jersey, but now I have that AND a Jacoby 46 shirt. come on.

Soccer:
To me, it looked like overall DC united was the stronger team....however once they got to the goal they'd fall apart and never score which is ultimately what lost them the game. Thats really all i have to say about soccer since i dont know that much to start off with.

cant wait for the rest of the spring/summer soccer and baseball games!! Starting friday with the brewers game!

New Orleans!

Just got back from my 3rd trip to new orleans in as many years. This time it was for Alexis's bachelorette party.

Food

I'll get this statement out of the way first...NOLA has almost no food for vegetarians. I ate a lot of stuff I normally find gross just so i'd eat something...like mushrooms and radishes and quinoa...I kid you not. Bignets though are awesome.

Outfits

We went to a wig shop in preparation for the evening and bought colored hair extensions, although mine didnt really show up in pictures b/c i went for a dark purple. But that was fun, and I still have mine for future outings. Also, we were peer pressured to put on temporary tattoos (weird, and dont do this at my party please) but i picked a small one that said "love" and put it on a boob, and all night people kept pointing and asking "is that real" and i kept forgetting about the tat and being offended they asked if my boobs are real, then i'd look down and remember.

Boys
We accidentally conducted a science experiment. Friday night we were so cold that at around 1 am we went home and changed into our warmest and frumpiest clothes and returned to bourbon street where boys still approached us to flirt and chat. Just when we thought it couldnt get worse, we changed into our pj's to walk around the hotel to attempt to play a joke on the bride, and guys were still interested. Nola boys are NOT picky.

Once we got to a very crowded Patty O's a super nice couple saw our party and gave us their prime location table where everyone who walked into the bar passed our table, and struck up a conversation with us. Andreea and Kat came up with a great idea to get the cute boys that passed by to kiss the bride on the cheek for her scavenger hunt. This was a lot of fun for the rest of us, but I think alexis thought that part was less fun. There were two guys to note though. One came up to alexis and was like "i'm the stripper they hired" (and started unbuttoning his shirt). then when alexis started pouting he was like "they paid a lot of money for me so you should try and enjoy it". He then hung around a while long and was hilarious. Then an OLD guy came up to Christine at some point and goes "whats the deal with people kissing the girl in a tiara? can anyone do it? can girls do it" she explained it to him and he was like "i'll think about it"...thanks buddy but noone asked you. On his way out however he stopped to give alexis a kiss. We stopped this game at 13 kisses and 1 rejection. The rejection I should note the guy approached us himself, then said "i'm not going to kiss her, i dont know who else has done that" at this point we told him to leave.

Jazz
We were there for Jazzfest, which was more fun than I imagined. There were Jazz tents set up in jackson square and along the water and we just walked around for a while. The food sucked (as noted above), but we got our pictures taken with milk mustaches, and soco had a booth set up with delicious frozen drinks.

I think fun was had by all this weekend. Thanks nola

Sorry

You may have noticed a lack in posts this week even though i promised more on the sox/revolution games i went to. They are still to come!

However my parents are in town so I am taking a half day today, and tomorrow i head to New Orleans for Alexis's bachelorette party so i'm taking another half day, so i've been working like crazy to get everything done before I go.

Who knows how much I'll be allowed to post about nola when I get back ;)

I didnt realize West Virginia had that reputation

Sat night after a redsox/nats game and new england revolution/dc united game (more on those later) we headed to Banana Cafe for a few drinks with Mike and Tristan. After the drinks we hailed a taxi to go home and talked sports with the driver the entire drive. It was very pleasant and I actually enjoyed the ride and discussion (minus the humorous confusion about why dc united was playing a British team, and that new england wasnt actually IN england).

We made the right turn to our apt as we were wrapping up the conversation about march madness when the driver threw in this Gem "I know that since i live in virginia I should root for the west virginia team, but I cant.." and then in the most happy and singsongy voice he completes his thought "because my son told me they are all gay".

We got out of the cab and looked at eachother, and peter said "he was soooo close [to getting a good tip]"

Best.Movie.Ever.

I dont know why it took me so long to post this, but last weekend I went to see the best movie ever for the first time of what I hope will be many.

Hubble 3D!

It was awesome. Leonardo Dicaprio Narrated, Astronauts were entertaining, and It was cool to see all the stuff I worked on. The coolest part were the New images that were enhanced by computers and 3D. The imax takes you right into the midst of it all.

I highly recommend going to see it.

I jinxed us!

So Friday night we went out to Eattonville with Peter's brother and his gf. Great meal, but during the meal I made a statement that I shouldn't have made. I said "our power never goes out". Ok so it went out like two times tops in the past 3 years, and never for more than a few minutes. So I consider that not worth counting.

Last night after I spent multiple hours making passover food and storing it in the fridge, the entire building's power went out....after half an hour I started to panic that all my hard work would go to waste and the food would go bad. at 45 minutes weird zapping noises started going. awesome. We looked out the window and the rest of the neighborhood had power. So it really was JUST us. Then we heard lots of sirens, but since we live on the backside of the building I cant just look out and see whats up. The sirens passed. After an hour of Darkness the power came back on and I went to sleep. It was like The 9th plague Choshech (darkness) was happening...a day before passover. freaky!

Nature in Greenbelt

Two days in a row i've had close calls with nature in greenbelt.

Thursday Karlyn and I went for a walk around greenbelt after work, and as we passed the little lake over by the post office I looked over and saw what I thought at the time was an alligator. I freaked out a little, but Karlyn assured me that what I thought was the gator nose was really the back of a beaver. We stopped and watched the beaver for a little and it scurried onto the land briefly enough for us to see that it did NOT have a beaver tail, and was much smaller than a beaver!!! I was convinced it was a large rat. We saw two more large rat buddies and by the time we left I accepted it wasnt a rat, but might possibly be a wolverine or mole-rat. I got home and peter said (and google image search verified) it was actually a muskrat. The last muskrat we saw chased us down and I ran for dear life....ok so it didnt notice us at all or move, but I still ran.

The second run in was just outside my office door on the path to my car. TWO little bunny rabbits stood in my way. I like rabbits and all, but noone else was around and I didnt want its giant front teeth to bite my ankles so I stood very still for a minute. They noticed me and one of them, while standing in place jumped a minimum of 2 feet vertically in the air. It was actually amazing to see. There was no running start or anything. They both moved out of the pathway and we all stared eachother down as I walked by all of us equally afraid of eachother. I took a picture on my iphone but it didnt come out too well.

I guess I gotta stay alert walking around greenbelt, it has some crazy wild life.

Lost!

As most of you are aware, lost is in the home stretch now with only like 6 or 7 episodes left, so I'd like questions answered. In order to help out with that I've been perusing Lostpedia to look up little things after episodes. But here is what really bothers me. To understand anything about the lost story evidently you need to play the lost video game (which i'm never playing). Its like they wont just let you half way be a nerd. You have to go all out to fully enjoy lost. WTF. I'm not doing it.

How do I get sucked into such terrible shows!

Ok, so I fully admit that about 50% of the shows I watch are terrible and trashy. For example The secret life of the american teenager, celebrity apprentice, beauty and the geek (which i wish they'd bring back) etc etc etc. Well last night I got sucked into yet another.

Dancing With The Stars

Predictably having Buzz as a contestant got me to watch the season premier. I told peter "i just want to watch Buzz dance then we can change the channel" but then Buzz went, and peter started to get worried that I hadn't changed the channel yet....I was hooked. I enjoyed watching Evan transition from ice to dance floor, and the whole show just made me want to take dance lessons! It was fun to watch. The show ended and I thought to myself "well that was fun, but I dont need to watch again"

WELL, i just read that next week the dancers will be dancing to the music of John Stamos and the Beach Boys!!! How could I miss the band I grew up on, and uncle jesse?? Who didnt love the beach boys/full house shows!

I'll set the tivo tonight.

The weekend was too short!

But lots of fun! Emily, Julie, and Matt were all in town and keeping me company while peter spent the weekend at work dealing with crazies and waiting for the votes.

Sat Emily and I went to the tidal basin, rented a paddle boat, paddled out to the center and just drifted for over an hour. It was awesome.

Sat night we all headed out to la loma, mike and katie's bday party, and brickskeller. At brickskeller I tried THE BEST beer. I think it was like called kasteel or something, and it was a dark red color, and it was cherry flavored, but not in a gross artificial way. it was so good! I guess recently i've discovered just how much I love fruity beer because my second one was a peach lambic. delish!

Another thing is allergies have hit me really hard, so I've been taking benydryl before bed, but last night I took benydryl and got in bed and stayed awake for 2 more hours!!! it was very strange. I hope that was a one time thing.

Strangest concert ever

OK so i knew last night would be out of the ordinary since it was at the W hotel, and a DCCC fundraiser, but i had no idea exactly how unusual it would be.

First off the W hotel is pretty unique looking and had the most ridiculous cheese plates ever. The slices of cheese were like 1/3rd of the block of cheese, and no knives were available to cut down the size! that was weird.

Second there were a handful of congressmen and women there, even a few that I mildly recognized (including big nan at the end)

Third Orleans played a bunch of songs well, but people were trying to talk so for the purpose of the fundraiser it was a little bit loud. At one point I noticed this guy that looked kinda out of place. While everyone was in suits or business casual, this guy had on a very colorful button down shirt, sunglasses, and jet black dyed hair, and overly tan skin....but then it all made sense when he got up on stage and did a few songs with the band. The guy turned out to be Jimi Jamison from the band survivor.

The other weird part was that the staff of the W hotel REALLY wants to help out. I mean i know they have a whatever whenever policy, but this was extreme. The waiters and waitresses carrying the food wouldn't just casually approach the group you were talking to, they singled out every person individually. Then the people who clear the cups etc REALLY wanted to take empty glasses, so one tried to take peter's cup from him while it was still full, and when he declined they made him at least give them his dirty napkin and toothpick. Lastly when I didnt want anything at the bar the bartender later left the bar to find me to ask if I was sure I didnt want anything. So A+ for W hotel service....I guess.

Busy week!

Guess who is going to an Orleans concert tonight??? thats right, its me! If I have to have a 6 day work week at least I have a little bit of fun during the week! Plus the light at the end of the tunnel is that Emily, Julie, and Matt are in town this weekend!!!

So tired

My weekend was good but very abbreviated :( I saw alice in wonderland 3d and loved it. I kinda want alice's wardrobe, particularly the mini mini alice's dress.

We celebrated Julie's birthday at matchbox/rocketbar and peter kicked my butt in skee ball.

Then sunday....with an hour less sleep i came into work to conduct a test. so that sucked, and now i'm super tired.

Worst Mall Experience Ever

So I went to the mall last night in hopes of dinner and jeans.....fail and fail.

First I went to express where i already know what style and size I wanted, couldnt be easier. I walked right to the jean section and wtf they only had ridiculous sizes that noone else would buy. I asked the store guy and he was like "yeah thats all we have, but have you seen these?" and he shows me the stupidest looking jeans ever with studs in random places, extra embroidery on the seams, and worn out spots in odd places. no thanks!

On to dinner. We walked right into Au Bon Pain for my favorite spinach and cheese croisant. NOTHING. wtf. ok I have a backup, Quick Pita in the food court for falafel and hummus. I turn around and....THE ENTIRE STORE IS GONE!!! We walked to harrys tap room and lebanses taverna to find GIANT lines at both of them.

Who knew the mall on a wed night was not the place to be. stupid pentagon city.

Its the little things

Saturday night i got Homeward bound (simon and garfunkel) sung to me to wake me up at 3 am in the morning. normally i don't like to be woken up, but this was so sweet that all i could do was smile.

Today I sit at work and the song plays in my mind, and I smile wishing that I were homeward bound at this moment.

I’m sitting in the railway station.
Got a ticket to my destination.
On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand.
And ev’ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Ev’ry day’s an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factories
And ev’ry stranger’s face I see reminds me that I long to be,
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

Tonight I’ll sing my songs again,
I’ll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought’s escaping,
Home where my music’s playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Silently for me.

Oscars and a Fun weekend

We celebrated Peter's new job on sat night! Which involved mini cupcakes, champagne, geryhounds, and Orleans music of course.

Sunday I had my annual Oscars date with Chris for like the 5th or 6th year in a row. This year, since he moved to chicago it was a little more difficult, but thanks to skype and web cams it was almost like we were in the same room. Almost. Chris won AGAIN. Since that was the long running competition that's really who I was concerned with beating, but its to note that Peter and Emily tied for first place.

And in my opinion the best dress of the night was Sandra Bullock. It was totally a dress I would have picked out for myself and it was gorgeous. Also I think peter learned something new about me last night that I've been trying to keep a secret...i LOVE cheezy Sandra bullock movies! well except that all about Steve one. But like when they referenced hope floats and i admitted that I cried the entire movie, I think peter died inside a little bit.

also its pretty appropriate that the first woman won best director in Women's Herstory (did you see what I did there) month.

1975

So we were watching TV and a commercial comes on for the first few seasons of SNL from 1975 on, and peter goes "that would be fun to watch"....so like an idiot I go online and buy the first 2 seasons (on sale at least).

Now we are going through season 1, and its really just not funny. We also fast foward through most of the musical acts except paul simon and abba.

One thing is that their fake commercials they just keep repeating over and over, but werent even funny in the first place.

This all makes me wonder how it lasted so many seasons!

Toyotas

I think that it must be really nice to be a toyota driver right now...I mean as long as you've had the break thing recalled and fixed already. They are probably getting places much faster these days. I mean personally i don't want to put my car infront of any toyotas, so I haven't cut any off recently, and also when a toyota is trying to merge I let them infront of me so they dont end up behind me, and if one ends up behind me I try and switch lanes. The way I imagine it for a Toyota driver these days, is that when they arrive at traffic, traffic just parts and lets them through. Maybe now is time for me to get a fixed toyota!

Weekend

This weekend Joe and I went to Puja's baby shower. It was really nice to see everyone, but also events with puja's family always result in delicious indian food! Its awesome! I cant wait till they have another kid, or like this kid graduates highschool or something so that i'll be invited back for a graduation party. For starters the majority of the food is vegetarian, so I just dig in. I take a little of everything, even the mystery dishes...and they never let me down. This time the two big mysteries turned out to be the best, one ended up being like fried balls of veggies, and the other was cauliflower!

Friday night we also tried an Indian restaurant in our neighborhood, that has been there all along, but we've never been to called the Delhi club. we've only heard good things, so why not try it! What these people didn't tell us that it is clearly a take out restaurant and not an eat in restaurant. The entire place is FILLED with a smokey haze drifting in from the kitchen. My eyes were irritated the entire time, and I left smelling like burnt food. The food however, was very good, at least my dish was. I prefer tandoori nights though...funny that both of the good Indian restaurants in my neighborhood are MUCH better take out than they are for sitting down to eat there.

Snowboarding Half Pipe Observation

Ok, so I am no snowboarding expert. I have never been, so if i'm missing something let me know, i honestly have been trying to figure this out for 2 nights now while watching the men's half pipe, and then the less interesting women's. Why is the women's less interesting? b/c they dont get as much air...however my question relates to that.

So here is my question: At the start of the halfpipe, the snowboarders start by standing at the top of a hill. Many choose to slowly edge down to the halfway starting point, many even STOP there...however in my opinion the smart few (very few, i've seen it maybe 2 times) just go straight down from that highest point. Why would you ever stop at the lower point??? Why doesnt EVERYONE just go from the higher point.

My Reasoning: Little physics lesson here, which i think most of you should know anyway...At the top of the hill you are dealing with potential energy, and as you begin to move you are turning it into kinetic energy. The idea is to get the fastest velocity possible inorder to get the highest air and have the most amount of air to complete your tricks. Acorrding to conservation of energy Potential Energy = Kinetic Energy....so mass*gravity*height=1/2*mass*velocity^2. Mass cancels out, gravity is constant, so as height gets bigger, velocity gets bigger. Therefore they should all want to start at the higher spot right?

am i missing something?

Valentines/Presidents day Weekend Part III

Virginia has some decent wineries. There were so many around this area that it was almost hard to decide.

We first went to Barboursville per the concierge's recommendation. This vineyard had like 20 wines to taste, and as usual my favorites were the dessert wines. We then got a tour of the production areas of the vineyards. The cool part about the vineyards were the "ruins" which was the brick outter skeleton of the vineyard owner's house which was designed by Thomas Jefferson. Architecturally, the most unique part was the Jefferson trademark octagon. Unfortunately at some point the house burnt down and they were unable to rebuild.


The second vineyard was called Jefferson Vineyard. The vineyard is located on the former land of Thomas Jefferson's. Legend has it that TJ had tried to grow grapes for wine multiple times by importing the grapes from Italy, but the American Soil etc killed them, untill the person who ran the barboursville vineyard figured out how to graft the italian grapes onto the stock of the american grapes so they could survive. Who knows what exactly of that is true. The other story is that one of TJ's failed attempts got trampled by soldiers coming through. We bought a bottle of viogner.

The final vineyard was the Kluge vineyard. This one was super cute because the flights were given in a very beautiful presentation, and the food looked delicious. If i hadnt had a 5 course meal planned for that night I would have eatten so much. If i lived near there it would be the perfect date spot. The wine we bought was a dessert wine mixed with brandy. It was very interesting in a good way.

Valentines/Presidents day Weekend Part II

Yeah, I guess you could say Charlottesville is fairly historic.

Our first stop was to Monticello, which is of course Thomas Jefferson's home. We were only allowed to take pictures outside the house, so you'll have to just read my description of the inside.

The outside is pretty recognizable since its on the back of the Nickel, and was just as impressive as I had imagined.


The name Monticello is Italian for Little Mountain since It is placed at the top of a mountain overlooking Charlottesville and the future site (now current) of the University of Virginia.



When you Enter the house the first room is fairly creepy with various animal horns mounted on the walls, drawings on animal hides, mastadon jawbones etc. TJ saw it as a museum I guess. There was a very impressive library, and greenhouse. His bedroom was split in 2 parts, half had cool gadgets and the other half was more bedroom like. The next room for entertaining had lots of paintings, and then you walk into the surprisingly small dining room. The cool part about the dining room is that it was placed above the wine cellar, and TJ created a dumb waiter to hoist the bottles of wine up.

Our tour guide was a little biased and did not want to admit to any of the Jefferson and Sally Hemmings "rumors", and referred to the civil war, as the war between the states.

The next historic stop was to Ash Lawn which was James Monroe's house, however we didnt feel like paying the entrance fee, and just saw it from the outside.

The third historic stop we made was to Montpelier, which was James Madison's home. After James's death Dolly sold the house to the Dupont family who expanded the house and added a polo field, and eventually gave the house back to the historic society who are in the process of restoring the house to its Madisonion days. The restoration process was really cool to learn about. So far they have restored the outside by removing the stucco and scaling the house back down to the correct size. They are now working on the interrior and have almost no furniture, and most of the walls are yet to be painted or wall papered. The most interesting room had open walls showing how the restoration process works.

Valentines/Presidents day Weekend Part I

We just got back from a terrific trip to Charlottesville VA, so good in fact that I'll have to write up the trip in 3 posts. 1. hotel, 2. history, 3. vineyards

We stayed at the Clifton Inn which looked really cute online, but we had no idea exactly how nice it was going to be. When we arrived we pulled up to the beautiful house.

We were brought to our room which was in the center of the 2nd floor looking out the back over the hills. The posting on the door said that peak season our room was 600 dollars a night, so its good that we came in the off season.



Our room came with a bottle of madeira, which was evidently Thomas Jefferson's favorite wine, and we later found out that it was what they were all drinking back then b/c it was so sweet that non refrigeration didnt really effect the wine.


Breakfast was served on the (indoor) veranda with some of the best croissants i've ever had, and other delicious breakfast items....although I think it was better for peter than myself since I dont eat breakfast staples such as Eggs or Bacon.

At 3 Tea was served in the living room along with the best scone i've ever had, fruit, lemon custard, and chocolate chip banana bread.

Dinner on valentines day was a 5 course meal with cheese ravioli as the first course for me, and lobster for Peter, Second course was risotto for Peter, and beat and goat cheese and pea tendrils for me. The main course was something fish with crab for peter, and for me was the most amazing tart of caramelized onions with artichoke hearts and a dijion mustard sauce surrounding it. Mmmm i'm hungry just thinking about it. Maybe I'll try and figure out how to make this. Then a Pre dessert, and a dessert, and then because it was valentines day a final course of chocolate covered strawberries. mmmmm!

Maybe someday we'll come back in the summer so we can actually enjoy the pool!