MassHoles

Ok so I spent the majority of my life not able to buy alcohol in Massachusetts, and just around turning 21 I moved away. I have returned to Mass this winter holiday season and spent way too much effort trying to buy myself alcohol.

MA has a stupid, stupid rule (not law) where most stores do not sell to any person without a valid MA license, and if you live out of state and do not have an MA license, you need a passport. Some stores even take this rule one step further and do not sell to one person in a party if another person in the party (the one not making the sale) does not have an instate license.

So as you can imagine, I ended up hiding in the car and sending my friend in to secretly buy me beer...like a 17 year old, not a 27 year old. wtf.

Home for the Holidays

I have made it to boston today. So far I've attended a xmas celebration, gone to redhook brewery, and tried to see the harry potter exhibit at the museum of science, but the museum was sold out and mobbed. I am now home at my parents hosue just enjoying the silence, cooking, and generally veging out.

Movie Review (not a rant!)

We finally made it to avitar in IMAX on our 4th attempt, and it was certainly worth it. The one drawback, is that the first half of the movie made me motion sick while I was getting use to the 3D etc. I thought i was gonna lose my movie nachos at one point, and after spending 11 bucks for a tiny bag of tostitos and cheese dip, I was determined to hold on to that. If i saw it again i'd probably not see it in imax hoping that would be less intense.

The bio-luminescent world that James Cameron created was beautiful. That alone is reason enough to watch the movie. The 3D was really great too (hence my motion sickness). It was cool becuase it brought oyu into the movie, like when wood burned, ashes would come out to the audience, or when the jellyfish type seeds flew around you could see them pulsing all around you like little tinafores.

The story itself was really good and very sweet and dont worry also full of action. The plot wasn't all that original, but I didnt mind that too much. I kinda think of it as a cross between lord of the rings and the matrix...both solid movie series (i dont want to hear any of you nay sayers about the last matrix movie).

So my advice: Go see the movie, bring gingerale incase you feel queesy, and buy your tickets in advanced (oh yeah, and try not to go during a snow storm)

What is today?

XKCD pretty much shows you how i feel in today's comic strip. I actually had to ask my office mate when xmas eve was last week.

Anyway, what do I call today? I understand its Christmas eve tonight...but it cant be that all day. Eve by definition is the evening. So for the past few weeks when people ask me which day I'm flying to New Hampshire I tell them "Christmas Eve Day". Everyone laughs when I say that, but really it makes the most sense so I'll keep saying that.

Anyway, off to the airport for a week in various parts of new england! Call me if you are around

Snowdays are for movies!

Well, I'm back at work after a lovely snowed in 3 day weekend. I saw so many movies this weekend
1. The hangover which we bought on bluray!
2. Ice age (whatever the newest one was, and it was pretty bad and i fell asleep half way through)
3.Disney's the princess and the frog. It was cute
4. Invictus. Great movie! I highly recommend going to see it :)
5. Enchanted - I've seen this before but I still love it
6. Muppets from space! I bought this for 5 bucks the other day. its pretty cute.

I think i saw a few others but cant remember what. Hopefully Avitar tonight (for the fourth attempt)

Arts And Crafts Type Weekend

I spent a good portion of the weekend cooking, sewing, and shopping! How girly of me! Sometimes I guess I just get into super girly mode. I cooked Latkes and parisian macaroons, and "adult" sugar cookies (with tristan and mike), and sewed a table cloth, and enjoyed the outlet shopping.

To see some of my crafts check my other blog

I need this

because its oh so true

I will accept it in almost any form: Napins, Magnet, Mug, etc

This looks familiar....

Sunshine Cleaning

I saw sunshine cleaning last night and it was really good. I had sorta wanted to see it in the theater, but never got around to it and only thought it was going to be so so, but I recommend it. Its kinda a sad movie, but GREAT cast, and all 5 main characters are really likable and helps you get into the movie.

Anyway I dont want to over sell or ruin the movie for anyone so I'll just stop there.

I guess I'm a Trekker

Since I blew my cover last night when Charlotte called, and in the background phasers were loudly set to stun as peter and I watched all the extras and deleted scenes from the new star trek movie, I might as well just blog about it.

First off JJ Abrams is a giant but awesome nerd and I love it.

It was funny to see some of the deleted scenes because it completely changed the story's flow. For example they explained what the bad guys had done for 25 years while waiting for spock's return, which included the most Orc looking klingons ever.

The best deleted scene was like right when spock was born and they show him as the cutest little baby only a day old, and then they change the camera angle so you can see his adorable little vulcan baby ears!


Anyway, if you happen to buy the new star trek movie I recommend taking the time to watch the extras, its fun to see how excited everyone was while making the movie.

Tell me this isnt the cutest thing you've seen today

The Lost Symbol

I am currently half way through Dan Brown's new book, the lost symbol. I fully understand that this book isn't "good". The plot isn't unique, the writing style isn't great, and the slow reveal of all the "mysteries" that are really just blatantly obvious statements is moderately condescending. That being said, I cant put the book down! Its a fun quick read that I've enjoyed on the airplanes and at the gym.

Since we all know that this book will be made into a movie (since it was written just for that), I keep trying to picture who will play all of the characters. I dont have any guesses yet.

The other fun thing is that this movie will take place in DC so not only will we see them shooting everywhere, but as I read the book I'm already familiar with the locations. This morning I drove between the capitol and the library of congress and started to see Robert Langdon running around to hide the masonic secrets.

One more thing

Peter and I got back to bwi late Sunday night after a slight delay from Manchester. All I wanted to do was get in my car and go home and SLEEP. We got on the bus to go to the express lot (the long term parking was full). Just as we get to our row where my car is waiting I see this GIANT racoon run under the row of cars! So I ran from the bus to the car and waited for my bags to be loaded in and not endanger my ankles from racoon bites. Luckily the racoon never appeared.

Then I get to the gate to pay, hand the attendant a 100 dollar bill for our 40 dollar fee and she informs me that i need to give her something smaller b/c all she has are 1's to give me! I had nothing smaller and obtained that bill specifically to pay parking. We patiently waited as she counted out 60 one dollar bills to give me for change. Luckily she had a couple of 5's to fill in. So for the next few days I'll be paying for everything in 1's. I'm expecting plenty of jokes.

Good bye express parking!

Back to dc!

I'm back in dc after a long thanksgiving break. Boston is so hard to get around without a car, but when I managed to hitch rides or borrow cars I had a lot of fun seeing many old friends.

I tried a drink called a Grapefruit Fizz, and mainly I'm blogging about it here so I don't forget, it was soda water, grapefruit vodka, grapefruit juice, and a slice of grapefruit! Very very delicious.

The good news is that the pies that i made turned out delicious! I made 2 pecan chocolate bourbon tarts and one cranberry tart and people loved them! mmmm i wish i had brought leftovers back with me!

I'm leaving on a jet plane

I'm going home like I do every year for thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it and will be back on sunday :) that is all

First attempt at night photography

I made my first attempt at night time photography this weekend. I figure that this city is very beautiful at night, so why not use it as my testing grounds for hopefully some day being really good at night time photography. I packed up my 3 lenses and my tripod and headed out.

I think I learned two tricks to try for next time that didnt occur to me till I got home.

1. use the hood that comes with the lens to block out as much ambient light as possible
2. use the self timer for each picture since clearly the motion of pushing the button is enough to make the images blurry.

Ready to try again!


also this wasnt my best photo from the night, and is a little blurry, but i thought it was one of the more interesting shots

More Terrible Shows

Due to an email from my friend Andreea I decided to give the new show Cougar Town with courtney cox a try. Let me tell you, that show is TERRIBLE. I dont want to trash on Courtney though because she was still good. Her two side kicks seemed like terrible people, and borderline annoying. The one girl from scrubs/the drew carey show was the worst. She's had some unfortunate plastic surgery and she's basically playing the same person she was on scrubs but toned down and not funny.


Anyway, to peter's delight, you can be sure I wont be watching this again.

Time For A Change

Blogger says this is my 672nd post including drafts I wrote but never posted. Until now i've stuck with two, maybe three default blogger templates an just barely modified the colors and a few subtle things here or there. I've decided its time for a bigger change, so here it is. You'll notice that for now there is no title. This is because I dont have software on my computer at home to edit pictures so I will fix this as soon as possible. Please bare with me! Also hopefully this will be the start of a whole bunch of future templates.

The other change that I still need to fix is that my links were all deleted. That's partially ok since half of them are out dated, but I will update these also later.

when it rains it pours

Today two great but totally different things happen.

1. Going to see John Grunsfeld speak tonight about hubble. He was the last person to touch hubble before leaving the service mission, and I've seen him before, but I cant wait to hear what he has to say this time.

2. New "them crooked vultures" cd! I've heard 2 of their songs so far and really like it. I'm certainly going to go home and download the entire CD tonight.

So a little space nerdery and a little dave grohl all in the same day! Could anyone possibly have a better day?

I'd also like to note the great launch yesterday, and the meteor shower tonight!

Minus the broken car, what a great week!

For anyone concerned

The car place just called and it was my ignition coils, which coincidentally I just got a recall notice for this weekend. Thats too weird how coincidental it is. Anyway, that means that its covered by VW! yay! I hope to have my car back soon :)

Waving

So after hearing months of hype over the new Google wave Robbie sent me an invitation which I gladly accepted. I don't love it yet, but I'm willing to wait and see what happens with it. There are some flaws in the program right now, some features aren't enabled yet, and I only have like 5 contacts who are never online nor do I have the need to collaborate on anything at this point in my life.

One feature that needs to go away for this ever to work, is that it allows other people in your "wave" or conversation to see what you are writing as you write it. I don't know about you, but for me usually my first take on a sentence is dumb or makes no sense and I need a second shot before anyone else sees it, also I need to run spell check before others know exactly how bad at spelling I am. I hope if i keep writing this comment in Google related products someone will see it and do something about it.

Robbie sent me an article saying that the big problem with Wave is that its an extremely useful tool, but was rolled out to Geeks first who really aren't the target audience. I agree and I feel like maybe this product should have been rolled out to students first since they are the most likely to make good use of this, specific companies second, and then the general public....if ever the general public.

Anyway I'm excited to see what the future of wave has to offer!

My stupid car

is broken again. It violently shakes when on, and if you look under the hood while its on you can see the engine rocking....never a good sign. So i got it towed and am waiting to hear whats wrong.

My advice to anyone reading this blog....dont buy VW

Found at Target

Do you think this is
A) an android assassin from star wars as the box says
or
B) Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones four

Today is a Special Day for Me

14 years ago today was my bat mitzvah. I'm probably the only one who still recognizes the anniversary of their bat mitzvah, but then again I'm probably the only one who gets the day off every year to mark the event. Two years from now will be 11/11/11, I should have a big party that day! Last year Peter and I went to Gettysburg for veterans day, but today being a random Wednesday we arent really doing anything out of the ordinary with our extra day. Oh well.

Oh, also, Its Leonardo Dicaprio's Birthday, so Happy Birthday Leo

From Jim

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/11/10-geeky-laws-that-should-exist-but-dont/

I didnt really have anything interesting to blog today, but Jim just sent me this link and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it.

Thanks Jim

Feeling Old

As I sit, still in bed, after a late (3am) night out last night I am starting to realize that I am getting older :( Last night I had three realizations

The first was in a discussion with a friend's boyfriend. He made some comment about how they use to drink bacardi razz in high school, and I thought for a second and said "they didnt even have bacardi razz when i was in high school". We then played the age game and it turned out that The year I graduated from college was the year he graduated from high school. ouch.

The second was when at the end of the night I realized that the only time in the entire night I got carded was a courtesy carding since they were just checking everyone in line going into the trendy bar.

I then told the people i was with about these two occurrences and how it made me feel old, and a few seconds later i go "oh yeah, i'll be in boston in may for my high school 10 year reunion" and mike goes "well there is your third sign you are old"

Cooking Classes

I figure since mcdonnel won Governor in VA I better take cooking classes, since if he had his way I'll have to quit my job and stay home cooking and cleaning (ok we all know the cleaning will never happen)

We made some AWESOME holiday food
1. Chocolate Pecan Bourbon Tart. This was AWESOME. First off we made individual sized ones so they were cute and little. I also learned how to make the crust and mine actually came out really well! I've tried making this pie before but it tasted nasty, this time i was pleasantly surprised that it was delicious. Clearly i bought a bunch of mini tart pans before I left the store.
2. Cranberry Crumble Tart. The instructor made this while we watched, But I think I could replicate it.
3. Cheddar Scallion Biscuits. Yep its just as delish as it sounds. AND it was super easy so clearly i'm going to make this all the time.
4. Parker House Rolls. Is this even a thing? The instructor says its a boston specialty, but i'm from boston and have never heard of it, plus they were nasty.

Bunko Night

Last night Laura and I got called up as Alternates to Bunko night. We were very excited to be volunteered up by Lindsay :) Its a gambling game involving 12 girls and 12 dice, its a lot of fun.

I hope they need more alternates in the future :)

Election Day!

This morning we got up and went to our assigned polling location. We got close and saw no line winding around outside like last year. Only Dems were handing out sample ballots this year. Evidently the republicans have totally given up on our neighborhood (no real loss there). We went inside....still no line. We walked right up to the table and only 1 person was infront of us. We voted and walked out. Peter stopped to ask the lady how lines have been all morning and she goes "its been pretty steadily like this all morning, although at a few points we had noone"....oh dear. Sorry Creigh, we tried

Screw You American Recovery and Reinvestment Act!

Ok this is probably going to be one of my more selfish blogs since i know this act created thousands (maybe more) of jobs, and got Billions of dollars moving...but seriously people, mess with my commute and I turn all selfish on your ass.

for 5 solid days in a row I have hit stand still, scream in your car, going nowhere, double your commute time, traffic. And it sucks. The amt of traffic i've been hitting has slowly increased lately, but as of this week its become a regular occurrence. Infact I have started leaving work a half hour to an hour early to try and miss the worst of it (which eventually i need to make up)

I don't mind them fixing up the roads or whatever, but you'd think they could:

1. spread out the work. I don't need to hit construction at like 3 places both on my commute TO and FROM work...that's 6 construction sites on one small stretch of road. Maybe they could do one then the other.

2. Not do work during rush hours. For example....the 14th street bridge traffic was worse than usual earlier this week. They are working on the right lane which generally doesn't cause too much traffic, but that particular day they had brought in a large vehicle to lift a large object over the barrier into the construction lane from an open lane...maybe they could have waited till non rush hour to block the additional lane!

3. Offer Detour options. For example, the other day kennilworth ave was backed up pretty bad, so I took the first exit I could onto capitol hill and proceeded to get very very lost...if there had been a detour path back onto 395 past the construction site I wouldnt have wasted that extra 30 minutes.

So i'm not saying they should cancel the act, I'm not that selfish...but seriously, there are some easy adjustments to make everyone's life a little more pleasant.

oh also, if you didnt put signs up everywhere bragging about how your act is f'ing up my commute, I would never have known to blame my commuting misery on your act! I'm not that up on politics and would have thought it was just a bad coincidence to have all this traffic

NJ traffic

Did you know that NJ does everything in its power to make you avoid left turns??? All directions just have you spiral in to the final destination instead. The only thing the accomplishes is making everyone so disoriented that they forget they are in NJ.

I had planned to spend sunday morning touring around some of the places in NJ i went to years ago with my family, but once i realized how miserable it was to drive there we just stayed put.

Between the ceremony and the reception we had about an hour and a half, so we figured we'd head to the reception and find some place to hang out near there. It turns out that was not necessary since we got so lost on the way there that there was no extra time. We must have gone back and fourth on the same street THREE times before we found the right exit.

Thanks NJ for stealing hours of my life

Newark

This weekend P and I went to NJ for Jon and Alysia's Wedding. I'll blog first about the hotel we stayed at....

P, Chris, Annie and I all got rooms at the Crowne Plaza at the Newark Airport (technically in a town called Elizabeth)

We went out to dinner with Jon and his family and when we returned to the hotel I swear HBO's pimp ball or whatever its called was going on AT OUR HOTEL.

Out front were pimped out low riding cars in bright colors, men in swanky colored suits and afro's like i've only seen in movies, and ladies with big bootys and tight spandex sparkly outfits covering not much. And cameras videotaping their entrance to the hotel. I know thats a lot of stereotypes there, but whatever was going on was definitely worth noticing. I cant say for sure what the event was but i'm glad i got to see it.

Oh newark....

Bored To Death

So i've been watching this show so far this season, and its pretty good. Not quite as good as I'd hoped it would be, but definitely keeps me watching. Its good too because peter and I can watch together because I like Jason and Zach's characters and peter likes Ted Danson's Character.

Also, by the way, Ted Danson is a very good looking older man. I love his completely white hair, and his style is great, I want to buy peter some of his wardrobe...minus the episode where he tried to dress younger.

The only part about the show that i just dont like is Zach's girlfriend Leah. She is just so terrible, which is a shame because I like the actress :( I understand she's supposed to be all whiney and terrible, but if anyone from HBO is reading this, maybe instead you could make her adorable and lovable. That would make for much better TV.

Because I'm so mature

Who doesn't like a good celebrity jeopardy reference though? seriously!

places to see and be seen

Last night I took my co worker Kevin's advice and went to Cava on 8th street with Peter Tristan and Mike.

First off, the food was delish! I highly recommend it. We got cheese that was set on fire, Spanikopita, Fried Zuccini Fritters, and other people got some other things. mmmm I wish I could go back tonight.

So when we got there peter noticed a table of congresspeople. Clearly I wouldnt recognize them. There are only a handfull of capitol hillers that I will recognize outside of context. I'm not really a "dc person".

However, when we got up to leave I led the way and there was dennis kusinich infront of me. I"m not so much excited to see him as I am excited that I recognized him! Points for Rachel!

Who knew Cava was such a hot spot! Thanks for the recommendation Kevin

Weekend of Free Stuff and other fun happenings

This weekend Peter and I went to cape cod with my sister, her boyfriend, and andreea.

The free stuff began on our excursion to P-town. After a full day of climbing the monument, shopping, and watching two men running into the chapel to get married (cute) we stopped into the fudge factory to buy some fudge. Andreea bought some first and asked the fudge man to cut some off from her purchase so she could eat it right away. Instead he cut her an entirely different and free block of fudge to eat right away. Then peter and I bought some, and after that he goes "you three bought a lot, and seem to be together, so I'll just give you another half pound of fudge for free!" sweet!

That night the five of us went golfing. After Andreea lost her ball to the water TWICE, peter and josh ended up tying for first place and both ending with the final hole a hole in one. This meant they both got little trophies and tokens for a free game in the future. The rest of us got temporary tattoos.

Even later that night after dinner we stopped in an arcade we saw on the way to our car. It had skee-ball so really I couldnt resist. We started playing when Andreea, Josh, and Julie all hit ridiculous jackpots on different games. We were 130 tickets short of our goal of winning Topple. The guy behind the counter goes "if you give me 5 bucks i'll just give you topple"....this sounded like a good deal but we also wanted to keep playing. So we played a few more dollars and won only a few tokens. We decided to give him the 5 bucks to get topple, to which he added "i'll give you 200 more tickets to get whatever candy you want as well". Somehow we walked out with nerd ropes for each of us, which actually was an additional 350 tickets. Sweet. Also ps, nerd rope turns out to be even better than it sounds.

Only a few more hours

Till i'm on my way to cape cod!!! yay! I know its kinda cold, but I think we'll still have fun!

Oh, also i think i hurt my back trying on bra's last night. weird huh? All of a sudden my lower back was killing me. Its not so bad today, but I guess that teaches me to go bra shopping!

uh oh...i may be becoming a football fan

Last night i watched a game of football that i had no invested interest in either teams and I had a great time. I guess if i had to pick sides I was routing for the vikings because 1. percy havrin is on my fantasy team 2. I spent all weekend with my awesome Minnesota friends talking vikings/twins/etc 3. I like their colors better

So I just started watching not really intending to watch the whole thing or even caring much. but then something happened, i started cheering, and getting into it. what? thats a bad sign when you can sit down and watch any game. wtf. I guess its also fun when you dont have to be stressed about your team, so if the team you are rooting for fails no real loss for you. Plus it was funny to see rogers get sacked so many times...so next week i guess i'll be watching jets miami. lets see if i get into non pats games 2 weeks in a row....go dolphins?

Foggy Bottom Kinda Weekend

This weekend was my GW 5 year reunion. We went to the cocktail hour in the library where they had a "signature cocktail" of a blue martini, which was basically just a plastic cup full of vodka at 3 in the afternoon on sat. We then went over to a bbq in front of tompkins. That was delish. great food,cake, wine, beer etc. And we got to meet the new dean who seemed really cool. Laurie and will were in town too which was a lot of fun :)

We also saw the toy story, toy story two 3-d double feature. I had forgotten how good those movies were!!! I cannot wait for toy story 3 to come out :)

Its Yom Kippur and I'll Blog if i want to

So i'm home. Atoning for my sins I guess. I slept through temple this am...so there is sin #1. I'm sure I've got more.

This weekend was fun mixed with relaxing. Kate and Justin's engagement party was a lot of fun. There was this beefy dude next to us (not with our party) playing pool at the table next to us. He's the kinda guy that girls may have been swooning over like 10 years ago. Longish hair, big muscles, etc. Anyway he kept strutting his stuff awkwardly by us. Even at one point walking into Kate. He then ended up next to me, and I swear did the "bend and snap"...I was not impressed.

I was going to blog about the sermon last night, but i decided you wouldn't be interested in that. If i can find the link to the organization it was about maybe i'll post that later.

Without sound is always better

Last night at the gym I picked a machine that didn't have one of those contraptions to let you listen to any of the 3 TV's in front of the machines. This isn't such a bad thing since lately one TV is on C-Span, one is espn, and one is WGN...seriously??? those are my options??? I'm much better just listening to my ipod.

Anyway, on WGN last night was wwf superstars, or something like that. Normally I don't like these shows, but without sound it was hilarious. Obviously the wrestlers are just ridiculous and their outfits are crazy. The one thing i was able to notice without sound is that unless gravity was involved noone actually ever made contact with anyone else. You'd see one guy fake a punch and the other guy react seconds before contact. Sometimes they werent even CLOSE when the other person would react. I mean i know its all staged, but its funny to actually see it

Watch This

We watched this episode last night and its still making me laugh

Bedtime Stories

Yes, thats right. I actually watched bedtime stories. As you may have guessed I am a huge Adam Sandler fan, to the extent where I even love Little Nicky, Big Daddy, and other generally disliked movies of his.

Anyway we watched it (leaving click and dont mess with the zohan as the only adam sandler movies i've never seen and probably never will). It was......terrible and totally ridiculous. The person who wrote it HAD to have been high. seriously. We kept looking at each other at every turn in the movie going "wtf just happened" -- But we couldn't stop watching. I don't know why, but we had to see it through to the end.

Anyway, dont waste an evening like we did. Go find another movie to watch

Weekend in Baltimore

This weekend I went to Baltimore for the Friday night and sat night red sox games at Camden yards. The games were fun and we won both games. I kinda feel bad for baltimore b/c the entire city got taken over, even all the local stores were selling redsox stuff and not o's stuff. oh well.

We also went to the baltimore aquarium, a place i've been trying to go since the last time the sox were in town. I was super pumped to see the jelly fish, but we never made it to that exhibit. Instead i was forced to go see a stupid dolphin show and watch poor animals in captivity do tricks for food in front of an audience. awesome. Also that is probably hands down the worst aquarium i've ever been to, and i've been to a lot. I wont list the reasons why it wasnt a top notch aquarium, but i will say i dont like the one way flow of the exhibits. You just get stuck, and there were way too many people to even see anything. That being said I will go back just for the jelly fish. The only thing i wanted to see in the first place.

New TV

So last night I watched the new nbc show community. It wasn't what you'd call good, but it has potential. Three characters were good, and funny, and i even laughed out loud twice. The rest of the characters were terrible actors and so annoying, and hopefully they wont be in future episodes. In case anyone is reading my blog that has any say I will spell out what was good and what was bad

Good Characters/Actors
1. Joel Mchale - i wasnt sure i'd like him in this role but he's great
2. John Oliver - I always like him, but he fit well in that role too. I was un sure at first, but by the end he had sold it
3. some dude named Danny Pudi - Annoying at first, but had me laughing out loud once i was use to it

Bad Characters/Actors
1. Chevy Chase - he's alright as an actor, but sucky character in this show
2. The annoying blond girl- she's cross eyed, did anyone else notice that?
3. Annoying brunette - wtf, just stop talking. sooooo annoying. I know the role was to be like that, but i think she went above and beyond and hammed it up
4. Football star - he's probably the worst, and too much of an over actor. Also stop talking.

So i'll give the show a few more chances and we'll see what happens.

Here's the thing

I love bowling. There, i've said it. The weird thing is that i'm totally and completely inconsistent. Some nights I kick butt, and some I suck. Last night was the latter. I didnt break 100 once! Usually I can break 100 most games. I dont know what was up. But i want another chance! so to anyone out there that is interested lets go bowling :)

Delish

A few weeks ago leslie posted this great corn and tomato pie, which of course I tried right away and LOVE. So now i'm trying to make it as much as i can before corn goes out of season.

My Initial Pie Blog Post Here

Do yourself a favor and make this pie.

Back and ready for a full week of work!

I'm back from cape cod and nice and relaxed. It was great. The most exciting part was when we went to look for great white sharks, and instead found out how cute the seals are playing in the waves just a few feet away from people. So adorable! Unfortunately the day we were there one got bit by a shark :( poor seal :(

Last night's patriots game was more than a little stressful. way to wait until the last minute to pull ahead then let the bills have some super crazy play that almost looked like they were going to escape us and get a touchdown.

Short Week, Longer Weekend

Tonight I am going back to boston to spend the weekend with my parents in Cape Cod. I am VERY excited about this. Because of all the weddings, frisbee tournaments, and other stuff going on this summer I never made it to my favorite place :( Lucky for me I can now go any time of year, and Will be going this weekend, some time in october, and probably a few other times before next summer.

Things I will do
1. beach walks
2. shopping in chatham
3. mini golf
4. driving ranges
5. movies
6. general relaxation

I'm looking forward to every moment of it.

Pedro!!!

Last night peter and I went to the phillies nats game to watch pedro pitch. This blog is not about pedro in the least, but about the crazy phillies fans.

Our seats were above the phillies bullpen, so as soon as we got to our seats we knew that we were in phillies territory, but they were all around our age and seemed cool so it was ok. (as opposed to last time when we had a lot of redneck phillies families around us).

Infront of us were three guys and one girl who all seemed pretty cool and quiet and just wanted to watch the game, and all had phillies jerseys. two rows behind us were fat annoying girls in jerseys with loud smokers voices and were yelling/cheering at everything. One of the girls had kool-aid dyed red hair and eyebrows even. she was the loudest.

At one point peter got up to get my dippin' dots, and just as he left they started some weird "t-shirt toss sponsored by [someone's] sausage", and just my luck one flew right at the empty seat now next to me. I kinda pretended to try for it half heartedly, but the guy in front of me turned around and got it. darn ;). At this point the girl with kool-aid hair started obnoxiously yelling "give it to the little kid!". This was the first time I noticed a little kid was even in our section. The guy that caught the shirt said "its going to be tripple xL what is the kid going to do with that???".

The guy then unwrapped the T-shirt to see what it looked like (white with a tiny wording on the front saying "welcome home" with the nats w) and out came a sausage wrapped in tin foil from the center of the shirt. The guy threw it up to the kool-aid girl and said "do whatever you want with it"

So the Kool-aid girl gave it to the kid....but the kid wasnt looking and ended up hitting the kid in the head with a sausage as she tossed it over to him. At this point the dad got mad and got the section security over there.

The security goes "do you want the sausage back? the kid doesnt want it" and the girl said no, and for some reason the security guy asked again and the girl said "I dont eat meat, so blow me". The security guy goes "watch your mouth this is a family environment" to which the girl replies "what? I didnt swear!" At this point he kicked her out of the ball park and all of section 101 cheered.

My long weekend

so many things happened this weekend!

1. Joe and Erin "got married"...ok so they were married before...twice, but this was the ceremony and party for friends. It was at a farm out in perciville va and was gorgeous. The ceremony was infront of a cute little white house with columns, and the party was in the middle of the farm on a hill in tents.

2. Peter and I visited harpers ferry. It was kinda pretty at first, but then we walked up to the top of a hill to see jefferson's rock which was said to be the most beautiful sight thomas jefferson ever saw. It wasnt that amazing to me.

3. We accidentally stayed at the inn at charlestown which happened to be the hotel portion of charlestown races and slots. The action was NOT hot there. They had a lot of old school slot machines, and it was entirely smoking, so we lost 6 dollars and came out smelling of smoke.

4. We went to 4 vineyards. 2 of which i'd been to before and 2 new ones. it was a lot of fun and very pretty.

those are the main highlights

Adventure land

We bought adventure land b/c as i've mentioned before I like everything with martin starr, and peter had heard that adventure land was good.

It was alright. I wouldnt hate on it, but i also dont htink i'd recomend it.

1. It could have been funnier. They had a great cast including kristing wiig, bill haeder, martin starr. They just didnt have any moments where i was laughing out loud really.

2. The story line wasnt really all that original or interesting.

that being said it did hold my attention for the whole movie. So i dont know, its a wash.

Red Card

Check out 2:30-2:37 ish to see the replay of the red card and how wick gets in the ref's face.

Its that time of year again!

This post is mainly for Leslie, but although we are talking on IM right now I figured I'd post it here for all to share.

During the Halloween-Christmas stretch candy is at its best.

Hershey's kisses really branch out during this time. They experiment with all sorts of flavors like cherry jubilee, mint truffles, candy cane.

Yesterday I was at target and I saw the first sign of these new flavors appearing. This year's flavor: Pumpkin Spice

Its actually really good

Red Cards make soccer even more fun!

Last night Peter, Allan, and Allan's friend and I went to the DC united vs Seattle Sounders US Open Cup game. Seattle won, but the game was still super exciting, and I'll tell you why.

The game was 0-0 for most of the game, until this one little dude with shaved stripes in his hair scored a goal on us. As he scored he also fell to the ground. Next thing i know he's writhing around in pain. I look to the tv screens to see the replay and it looks like he scored, fell to the ground, then someone running behind him couldn't stop thier momentum and accidentally tromped on him.

The ref then appears with a red card! Ok, i could understand a yellow card, but red??? lets see that replay again.

They showed the replay but this time from a wider frame where you can see where the person who couldn't stop their momentum came from. It turns out that the guy scored the goal, fell down, and then the goalie who is now just standing still decides to take a running jump onto this guy's hand/crotch. Thats just like I always say, jump on their crotch while they are down, and make sure you are wearing cleats!

I will try and find a vid and post it later

Weeds

This season has only been so so. Half way through the season we were wondering why we were even watching, and i decided that it was because we were too far in to stop.

The season finale on the other hand turned everything around. I cant wait for next season. Although i wouldnt mind if they wrote the entire hodes family out. Well except issabel. she can stay.

The sons are getting to be good characters again. Season one shane was my favorite character with all his bear hunting, video making, and all around crazyness. I think he has been the subtle best character the entire series really. Silas is actually getting to be a likable and responsible character too which is cool especially since nancy is so totally the opposite.

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?

ugh

sometimes i wish streets were private just for me. I pick peter up on my way home and there is this little spot by the curb thats no parking but you can "stand" there so I drove up there and pulled over to the spot when this lady gets behind me in the obviously not driving lane. She's trying to turn right you see. This happened once before and the person realized and just went around me. This lady was a different kind of f'ing moron.

I turned my blinkers on to signal that i was not moving. After honking at me for THREE light cycles with noone in the other lane so it wouldnt have been hard at all to go around me she gets out of her car and starts yelling at me that my blinkers werent on when she got behind me so they didnt count. WTF. she then got in her car again and continued to honk.

Since we were on capitol hill and the police were starting to look over i decided to just suck it up and move to the other side of the intersection to wait. But man do i really hate that lady. what an idiot. seriously, there was no need to get mean and angry in that situation.

finally

A lifetime ago when I worked at my old office, and Tristan worked near union station we use to email back and forth about what we were going to have for lunch. Since Tristan worked near union station au bon pain was always an option for her and I was always jealous.

now that I sit onsite at goddard we have au bon pain soups in our cafeteria every day!!! Today was tomato bisque. mmmmm. Its not everything, but its a start. Next i'd like spinach and cheese croissants and Mediterranean wraps. Au Bon Pain is the best :)

Sea Kitten

PETA has this new campaign for fish, calling them sea kittens to make people like them more. Its dumb. BUT they let you design your own sea kitten which is fun. Here is mine



You can design your own too http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/

EMERGENCY FOLLOW UP TO MY BIRTHDAY POST

I cant believe I forgot about this until now.

At some point Charlotte and I wandered over to the ladies room. We walked in and it was hot as Africa in there. The stall at the end had 2 girls standing on the outside trying to help an evidently stuck person get out.

"slide the bar to the left" one of them said " no, no....YOUR left"

The door started shaking b/c evidently the person did not understand the instructions.

"ok, forget it, just slide under the door" the other girl added

And out from under the stall door was a boy in a seer sucker suit. He stood up, leaned against the wall for a second, gave the girls in there a "how you doin" nod, and walked out. alone.

It turns out the two girls helping him get out did not know him and were only helping a stranger (thought to be a girl) get out of a stall.

Calvert Cliffs

Sat morning peter and I headed out to Calvert cliffs. We drove forever, and finally arrived....to a parking lot. Unknown to us there was a choice of 4 different "hikes" to get to the beach, the shortest of which was two miles. It was 90 degrees and we were now hiking 2 miles. Luckily most of the trail was in the shade though.

We made it to the beach and I wanted to go to the right to search for shark teeth like i had read about, but peter wanted to go to the left to see if the fossils were in the cliffs (b/c i declared we weren't leaving without any fossils and he figured that would be the only place we'd find them). Turns out I was right and he was...well there were fossils on that side, but they were in this clay material that you really couldn't take home and preserve. I finally got us to go to the left and sure enough I found 2 shark teeth and one crocodile tooth (unicorn tooth according to leslie) and then the tide came in so I had to stop looking. I intend to go back and go directly to the left side and find more shark teeth :)

Awesome Birthday Weekend

I will blog in portions. Friday night:

First peter took me to dinner at my new (as of friday night) favorite restaurant Zatinya. It was AWESOME. We had Falafel (my always fave), Cheese Plate, Safran rice with dates and pistachios, spanikopita, and he got snails. The most amazing part is that there are MORE items on the menu that i'd like to try next time. that never happens.

Then we got to rocketbar to find Leslie holding down a great location with three boxes of awesome cupcakes. Dare I say better than magnolia? yes. Later in the night Annie and Chris and Katie also brought me a cupcake from Red Velvet which I ate the following night, and it was also great! The frosting was good, but what was to note was how good the cupcake cake was. Delish.

So many people came to my party from both near and far, and I really appreciate the effort that everyone made :) thanks for coming! i had a great 27th birthday! Looking forward to next year!

Its my birthday and i'll blog if i want to!

Today I turn 27. I have to be the only one who still loves birthdays, but what can i say, the are the greatest!!! Everyone is so nice to you all day, people get you new camera lenses, and new tiffanys necklaces, and watchmen dvd's etc. You get to go to nice restaurants, and then all your friends come out to meet you at a bar at night. I wish every day was my birthday!

And on with the Birthday Countdown

Since my birthday is on Friday, as you can guess I'm getting pretty excited.

With birthdays comes a lot of secrecy. This week at work we moved Chipotle Thursday to a Wednesday and my office mate refused a ride with me to carpool there. I was feeling like maybe everyone thought i was a bad driver or something. But as it turns out my office mate was buying me surprise birthday cheesecake!!

Its kinda funny that leading up to birthday events usually makes the birthday person feel left out.

The best birthday card i've ever gotten was from Julie and Jess at Summer Camp. It reads "to a gouda friend" with a picture of a gouda wheel of cheese, then you open it "in fact there's no one grater" with a picture of a cheese grater. Jess had bought it (which julie made very clear to not take credit for the cheesy joke), then Jess secretly gave it to Julie for her to sign. This whole time, not knowing what was going on, I was starting to get very angry that my two closest friends at camp no longer wanted to hang out with me. As it turns out they were just trying to surprise me with the card. Dont i feel like a jerk.

In my old age i've learned that if anyone suddenly acts like they dont want to be around you, or is suddenly secretive around your birthday week or so dont fuss about it, and just wait for your birthday surprise :)

A new day, a new blog

While I will continue to update this page at the same rate I do now, I have also started a side blog about all the arts and crafts that I do. Take a look!

http://www.astitchintimesavesaline.blogspot.com/

A very Busy Weekend

On Sat Peter and I took a tour of the white house. It was very brief, but still cool. It would be so much fun to live there. My favorite room was the green room, and I really want the chairs they have in there.

Sat night we went to watch DC united beat the Colorado Rapids. I've been to many soccer games before, but it was peter's first professional one. It was a lot of fun

On Sunday we went with Joe and Kate to Great falls for a picnic and a mini hike. It was beautiful! We even climbed down the gorge to water level (which was super low) and was amazed at how clean the Potomac was! I was the most amazed at the signs that had previous high water levels. They were up above the banks by like 10 feet!!! Crazy. I'd like to go some time after a rain or snow thaw and see the waters rushing. Also it happened to be free park weekend so as we left there was a line of cars waiting to go in maybe 50 cars long. I'm not kidding!

Happy Landing on the Moon Day

40 years ago today we landed on the moon and life has never been the same since.

I am writing this post from bed, and will be heading to the newseum to go see buzz aldrin and others speak :) should be fun!

Also, the other big news is that we are in birthday week!! Cant wait till friday!!

Tomorrow i'll post about the weekend

Where Were Going We Dont Need Roads

Ok I dont usually post on the weekend, but peter left for work, the pool doesnt open for an hour, and I'm awake.

Up until last night I had never seen back to the future. It was just one of those movies that I missed, but wasn't really in a rush to see. I felt that there comes a point where a movie could no longer stand the test of time and if i saw it at this point i'd hate it, kinda like indiana jones. I didnt hate that movie i just didnt like it very much, but i acknowledge that if i had seen it when it came out i probably would have liked it.

This summer Rosslyn is showing outdoor movies every friday to the theme I love the 80's. Last night as you could guess happened to be Back to the future. We met up with Laura and Matt, sat down with our blankets and wine, and the movie began.

I think its safe to say I was the ONLY one there who had never seen it because people kept clapping and cheering at parts. I myself was totally enthralled. I mean i knew he'd make it back to the future because there are more movies in the series, but i didnt know how many tries it would take, or if they'd send him elsewhere first, etc. It was awesome. I am now going to rent the other movies and invite people over to watch :) Let me know if you are interested.

The Pink Sprinkles

My friend Laurie is doing the Susan G Komen 3 day walk, and every member of her team has to raise 2300 dollars. In order to do so they have created a silent auction (featuring one of my quilts). Check it out and see if there is anything you want to order!

http://www.onepinksprinkle.blogspot.com/

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Of course we saw the movie yesterday. I have a perfect track record of seeing all the HP movies on opening day, and have two more to go!!!

The movie was really good. The cinematography (i think thats what you'd call it) was really good and fun to watch, the acting has gotten much better, and it was funny. They did however focus way too much on awkward teen romance. When Harry Potter was written teens read it, but the movie crowd now has so many of those grown up teens like myself who dont need to watch quite so much of that.

The movie also doesnt have a whole lot going on like the other movies, but I knew that going into it that the point of this book was mainly to set things up for the last book.

Anyway, its worthwhile to go watch it but not amazing

I dont even know

Last night before peter got home I went to watch tv that he wont sit through, which means either E! or the disney channel really. What I came across was "the dish"...a new to me show on E! which is like "the soup" but girly-er from what I could tell.

the weirdest part is that Topanga from boy meets world is the hostess of the show! Does that seem weird to anyone else??? Also i'm not sure she's good either. I cant tell if i'm not use to seeing her in this setting, or if she's just a bad actress...maybe i'll watch again to see.

Roadkill

OK here is what I don't get, why is the road kill always on the side of the road?

Do people swerve onto the shoulder to hit the animals?
Do people hit the animals on major highways and then stop their car and move it to the side of the road?
Do they hire people to move them to the side of the road?

If its the last one why don't they dispose of the animal instead so that people don't have to see bloody split apart animals? Alternately if its the second one that doesn't seem very safe to me for a number of reasons. And the first one doesn't seem likely because I don't think that many people have trouble staying on the main parts of the road.....which brings me back to my first question: how does it get there???

Red Sox in Boston

Part Three of my vacation.

We ended up in Boston for the end of our vacation to go to a sox game at Fenway. As always it was awesome. What helped is that we also won the game :)

Unfortunately nomar wasn't playing for Oakland that day :( I've attempted to see Nomar TWICE in the past few years and both times i see him get out of the dugout and take a few practice swings while the last out is at bat and the game is over.

I guess the big question now is will I watch the allstar game this week?

on to new hampshire

We spent a night in New Hampshire.

First we went to the anheisier Bush brewery. it was HUGE. I've been to many breweries before, but never any on this scale. The closest was the harpoon brewery and that was like 1/8th of the size of this if not less. There was one room of vats, and there were like 20 or so vats, and each one could make enough beer for someone to drink one six pack a day for 108 years. Crazy huh?

The tasting room at this brewery was terrible though. I mean i know, its bud light and similar, but generally when you are at a brewery and its fresh its awesome. Not here, i don't think it was fresh either, i think it was just one of their kegs or something. We tried the new American ale, the beach bum blond beer, and stella and shock top b/c we knew we liked them. Moral of the story is that anheisier bush products suck no matter what....but people will keep drinking it anyway.

Weddings, Baseball, and Roadtrips Oh my

As usual I'll write my long blog in a few installments. Congratulations to Annie and Chris and Karlyn and Rey.

Annie and Chris's wedding was a lot of fun. They unfortunately had some unplanned rain in the middle of the ceremony, but the party was a lot of fun and even included the hora! It was nice seeing a bunch of friends from home and a bunch of DC friends all together.

To me the most amusing part was after the party ended peter had scouted out a cute place for us, so we went to the little gazebo behind the party and were kissing just when maybe 20 people or so came outside. Peter and I were still wearing our glow sticks so we were busted. They all started yelling "Is that Chris and Annie?". It was all the employees from the hotel setting off one single firework before they ran back inside to clean up. It was pretty embarrassing.

Long Long Weekend

12 hours from now we'll be on a plane to boston and 24 hours from now we'll be driving from boston to VT for our Three State long weekend Vacation, and Chris and Annie's Wedding!

If you've ever spent 4th of july with me you know its my favorite holiday and i get all sorts of dressed up for it.

So basically what i'm saying is no blog post till next thursday!

Jams and Preserves

Last night Puja and I went to one of the sur la table cooking classes and it was awesome! I am so pumped to make more!

* Pickled Okra - These came out really well, but i'm not a huge okra fan. They did suggest putting them in bloody mary's instead of the celery which sounds more than awesome so I'll probably have a party just so we can do that some time

* Bread and Butter Pickels - These were good for bread and butter pickels, but i dont like that type of pickel anyway, i prefer the dill pickels

* Blackberry Jam with Grand Mariner - This was AWESOME. We served it over chocolate ice cream, but as we were eatting it I thought of a million other uses.

* Peach and Vanilla Jam - This one was pretty good, but i dont really like vanilla as much as most people so I probably wont re make this

* Nectarine and Raspberry Jam - This was awesome and i went right home and made it but replaced the raspberry with blueberry.

So what i'm saying is that if you are invited over some time soon its probably b/c i want to try out my new cooking skills on you :)

Spelling

This morning on the radio they discussed a survey done by www.spellingsociety.org about how many common words are frequently misspelled. Most of the words on the list I actually knew how to spell which is weird since I'm such a terrible speller.

The one word that was on the list that made me feel better about always spelling it wrong is definitely which oddly i just spelled correctly first try. Its a difficult word to spell since its pronounced more with an "a" sound than an "i" sound. Evidently 72% of the population spell it wrong.

Thank goodness for spell check!

Angels And Deamons

Last night we finally saw angels and demons and its a million times better than the da vinci code. I actually liked the book of angels and demons better than davinci code anyway, and of course i liked angels and demons book better than its own movie.

I think the ending of the movie was changed, but I cant quite remember since I read the book about 5 years ago.

The main character girl i did not like though. She was ugly and not a great actress. As peter pointed out she's no audrey tautou.

Next movie: Transformers

Fun but busy weekend

Leslie was in town this weekend and as usual we all had a lot of fun

The highlights:
Friday night while waiting for leslie's super late bus to arrive peter and i headed over to sonoma for some food and wine. The cheese plates there are always awesome and this time was no different. I love going there.

The weird thing about sat night is that any of the bars we went to were totally empty!

Saturday was a lot of fun hanging out with the criss mann farmer crew for Connor and Juliet's birthday party. and saturday night was topped off with a sampler pack of harpoon and pasta salad by the pool

And sunday we intended to spend the day by the pool. We tried...but the clouds never cleared up and it started to rain so we went shopping in gtown then met up again with peter for dinner at matchbox.

Fun full weekend

Bad night All around

I wont dwell on last night's sox game and Smoltz's disappointing start for the redsox.

And as any of you who dont live under a rock know, Michael Jackson's sudden death was very shocking and sad :(

I dont think today will get a full blog post. Nothing good to say.

Red Sox Game 2

We went back to nats park last night. Section 141, right between JD Drew (who actually batted well) and Jacoby Ellsbury.

I ran into an old friend from college, Andrew, to watch Batting Practice. We got right up to front row and i got some great pictures which maybe some day I'll post.

It was great watching big papi hit a home run and trot around the bases at big papi speed (which, for anyone keeping score, is faster than mo vaughn speed)

There was one kid a few rows infront of us wearing a matsui shirt, so the drunk guy infront of us kept yelling "matsuuuuui", and then a meat head in the section over caught on and brought a little un needed racism to it instead of pure yankee hatred. Then the rest of our section caught on at the top of the 8th inning to start a matsui chant.

I love red sox games!!!

Red Sox Game 1

Last night Peter, Pete, Emily, and I went to the first nationals redsox game IN dc for the first time ever! It was AWESOME. The start of the game was neck and neck untill the 7th inning when we pulled ahead and really sealed the deal in the 8th.

Always fun watching the sox.

possibly the best play of the game was Nick Green (no, i dont miss julio lugo in the least). He jumped up to catch a ball heading this way, and as gravity pulled him and the caught ball back to earth he leaned down, tagged the runner, landed and threw the ball to First for the double play all in one swift motion. It was like ballet on the field.

Sometimes I really miss living in boston...or should i say redsox nation.

Thanks to Jim

Take a look at this article about what your facial hair really says about you. Its good for a laugh.

I particularly like how the mutton chops are good for people with adamanteum skeletons.

http://www.holytaco.com/what-your-facial-hair-really-says-about-you

Traveling through a nore'easter

This weekend i went to Boston for Julie and Matt's wedding.

I took delta from dca to bos and couldn't have been more disappointed by their service on both ends.

On the way there I checked in on time, paid for my luggage online and arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before my flight. I went to the self check machine like a usually do, but they had no record of my prepaid luggage! So i got in line. One employee came over and said "who is waiting for baggage tags" and moved us to another line. Then he came over one by one and asked if we had already used the self check machine. I explained what had happened and he told me i needed to get in another line so i moved to the other line. The lady at the counter then informed the two of us "in line" that our line wasn't real and we'd have to get to the back of yet another line OF TWENTY PEOPLE. At this rate i'm cutting it close to my flight and getting worried. I decided to just go back to the first line i was in and was eventually helped and made it to the gate just in time to board.

On the return flight I checked in a little after the 24 hour mark and got a "seat request card" instead of a seat assignment. I got to the gate an hour ahead of time and there was no gate agent in sight. She finally showed up minutes before the flight should have taken off and was in no rush to do anything to help anyone in the now formed line. I got up to the desk and showed her my ticket and she said "we'll deal with that later"...um i'm a nervous traveler, i just want a f'ing seat assignment otherwise i would have picked southwest, the far superior airline. the flight should have taken off at 5:35 and i didn't get my seat assignment till around 7pm.

Also I had my suitcase to carry on, and my purse and a TINY plastic bag for some pasta i had just bought. The lady informed me i had 3 bags which i couldnt have and that i'd have to get out of line and consolidate. wtf. I stuffed the pasta in my purse and ignored her.

So basically what i'm saying is dont fly delta if you dont line being treated like you dont matter

Slow hour

I am leaving early today, at 2:30 because I am flying home to boston for Julie and Matt's wedding. This is 1 out of 5 weddings this summer yet only 1 out of 2 that DONT fall on a long weekend, but it does fall on a holiday weekend (fathers day).

I have one more hour left of work and i think the clock has stopped. Each time i look down its only one minute later.

The plus side is i went shopping today and bought my first diane von furstenberg dress and i'm totally in love with it. I dont know how it will wear since its a little big and i had to pin it, so it may not work out all that great for this weekend, but thats ok. I'll bring it to a taylor so i can wear it again some other time

Graduation

Last night I went to see Mr Connor Bones' kindergarten graduation. It was just as cute and sweet as I had imagined. The 10 children sang a bunch of songs in Spanish and English, and recited the alphabet and thanked the parents and were just all around cute. Plus Connor was by far the most popular kid there, he had a large portion of his extended family there, me, and the baylys. And as a nice surprise for me, little Lila was wearing the cutest little dress I bought last summer for them so that was exciting to see :)

Maybe my sister had the right idea doing a major that lets her play with kids all the time.

Weekend

Friday night peter and i kicked of the weekend posing as Charlotte and Levi because they gave us their Georgia Browns reservation. It was too bad we couldn't all go together, but it so yummy, i'd go back.

Sat and sunday were nice and low key, but sunday night we went with diana and doug to see the hangover. Everyone and their brother had been talking up this movie, plus the commercials looked pretty good, so we went to the courthouse theater in hopes of seeing the usual courthouse empty theaters....but this time it was PACKED. Packed with really weird people too who, for example, thought the preview of sandra bullock falling into a hole was hillarious. That being said, the movie was awesome! Go watch it.

Take that Nats! Didnt totally rain me out!

After being rained out of 3 games, and only making it to one I didnt have high hopes for yesterday's game especially when it started to hail on my drive home.

I began to call the nats hotline to see if it was going to be delayed. Instead of giving any information it simply said the game would start on time at 7:05....even at 7:30 when it was pouring this message still remained.

Diana, Doug, Peter and i made our way to Good Eats to kill time. Diana immediately recognized the owner and chef from his top chef days and asked what was the best thing on the menu. He recommended the smokehouse burger and toasted marshmallow shake. I got a salad, rosemary fries, and a toasted marshmallow milkshake! He wasn't wrong. The shake was awesome! The salad was nothing special, but the fries were awesome. I'd definitely go back there.

The rain finally passed and we made our way to the game, which, as all nats games go, was not really that exciting at all. In the 5th inning the nats were down 3-1 so we decided to leave. No real loss leaving early.

I had a fun night though, and i'm glad i got to watch some baseball

sometimes the nerdy is actually cool

last night we watched Star Trek IV the voyage home (in blu ray of course), and I was expecting to be bored by it, but it was actually really funny! Who knew! I'll probably watch some more of their movies soon.

We also watched wayne's world which is always a good watch. Although watching this movie made me really sad for Mike Myers since he use to be entertaining and now he's just not and i dread any new movies he comes out with. How can you go from so funny to so not funny at all?

Team B.O.O.B. Races again

This Saturday Team B.O.O.B. Is racing again for its 4th year i think for the Susan G Komen race for the cure. We have a huge team this year, and many parents and siblings this year. Sweeney's new acronym is the WOD squad (with out daughters). She's a creative one (in fact she's the one that came up with Beating Our Odds Beautifully for Team B.O.O.B.)

Weather forecasts are saying that it will be beautiful and sunny! If you are reading this and still want to join come on out! you can still register today :)

Also my mom and sister are here for the weekend and am trying to think of things to do with them, suggestions welcome.

Randy Johnson's failed attempt at entertaining me

Last night, like many others, Peter and I headed to nationals park to try and see Randy Johnson's 300th win.

Having been to the park many times before, i knew i didnt need to buy tickets in advance and pay service charges, so we showed up at 6:30 all ready to buy tickets, armed with one umbrella, and got in line. It begin to rain, but it only took seconds to turn to derential downpours...stupidly we bought the tickets anyway thinking it would pass.

We made our way into the ball park and huddled with others under the only overhang in the entire entrance section. We made a run for it and got into the team store looking for dry flip flops and rain ponchos. Initially they had neither, but quickly got the ponchos.

Of course as soon as we got the ponchos the rain stopped, so we made our way to the concessions and had dinner through off and on showers. Finally at 8ish it stopped raining and the grounds crew came running out in all their glory and began to attempt to dry the field. Things were looking up.

We found our way to our seats and were all ready for the game when they made an announcement over the loudspeaker: "there is a second storm coming through, but the field is ready, so if the storm misses us, we will play"...then "attention all nats fans, please leave your seats immediately and find shelter"

That was when we left, game still not called. Our ride home was difficult through all the rain and lakes now on the road.

All night i kept checking to see if the game was called, but i went to bed with the nats still thinking the game might happen that night.

It was rescheduled for 4:35 today, so clearly i wont be there :(

Nats 3....Rachel 1

Maryland's Place in Space

First off, Happy Birthday to Leslie. really what better gift than a nod in my blog?

Last night Peter and I went to an event at the maryland space center celebrating maryland's place in space. We showed up and got some heavy h'orderves. Crab cake sundae bar for peter, make your own taco stations, and lots of cheese. The best was the open bar with grey goose.

We also got to walk around the exhibits. The funniest part was I looked over to the dinosaur part and could have sworn one of them was moving! Peter laughed at me, but then we got there and sure enough, mixed in with the still ones were a couple scary animatronic dinosaurs. Oh, and the name of the exhibit? Chinasaurus.

They then had us all go into the Imax for some speeches and videos. Three Astronauts, one undersecretary of NOAA, One VP of lockheed, and one head of goddard later it was time for the surprise guest, Christopher Scolese, the acting head of nasa. When he walked out peter leaned over to me and goes "that is the king of the nerds". Its true.

Oh also someone's phone rang mid speeches and it was the star wars imperial march. Of course.

It was a fun night, if not a bit nerdy, but thats ok :)

Weekend Outdoors

This was a beautiful weekend with perfect weather.

The most eventful part of the weekend was driving out to the blue mountains to go strawberry picking. It was nice because it was the strawberry festival so they had live music that you could hear in the fields. Who knew that picking strawberries was so hard on your body! My thighs kill today from all the picking!

After we picked way too many strawberries we crossed the street and went to the vineyard for a wine tasting. The best wine was a strawberry dessert wine that they said would taste great mixed with champagne, so we bought that and a block of garlic cheddar and a half a loaf of bread and sat on the veranda overlooking the valley. It was quite nice. I cant wait to go back for blueberry season!

Theres only Us, Theres only this forget regret or life is yours to miss

Yes, Thats right, I went to see rent again. I love it and dont think i'll ever get tired of it.

One super cool thing that really excited me was that Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal were playing Mark and Roger. If you arent familiar with them, they are the two original actor's from Rent's first run, and they also played these characters in the movie. They are also the ones that sing on the soundtrack so they are the voices I am use to hearing.

It was interesting because I went with Laura who has never seen it, and she didn't really like it that much. Although she admitted the First act was OK and second act was much better than the first.

Anyway I had a great time and cant wait to see it again!

I use to be an archie comics avid reader. There are far too many old comic books sitting around my childhood bedroom for me to even begin to deny it. But why would I? Archie comics are the best. Who doesn't love Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and even Reggie?

One big series long question was whether Archie Andrews should Date Betty Cooper or Veronica Lodge. I guess, being a brunette I was supposed to side with Veronica, but really I always hoped and dreamed that Archie would pick the lovable and kind Betty.

Today I just read on CNN that these hopes and dreams are going to be crushed! Archie is MARRYING Veronica. All I have to say is that Archie, you are a sell out. Of course you'd pick the rich and beautiful girl. Who cares if she's mean and shallow? Clearly not you Archie! I guess you just arent the guy I thought you were.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/05/28/comic.book.archie.marrying/index.html

Weekend Fun

This weekend I was home for Marisa's wedding, which meant so were the other winsor girls! It was nice seeing them again.

The highlight of the weekend was going to the Sam Adams brewery (again) and Harpoon Brewery with Emily and Chris. First we went to the Sam Adams brewery and it was pretty good, same as before, but the experimental beer flavor was a nice white beer.

Next we went to the harpoon brewery. We couldn't get in a tour for 45 min, so what did we do? Bought a 6 pack and hung out in Chris's car's folded down back seat till our tour. I found an old LL Cool J CD that we listened to. Finally it was time to take the tour. They took us through the big metal tanks and sanitized by alcohol and flame the spout on one of the big tanks, and poured out some green beer for us to taste. Nothing like flat beer.... Once the tour was over we went to the tasting room where there were like 10 different flavors. My two favorites were the Leviathan imperial and the wheat orange beer. Delish. The guy working there also suggested mixing the raspberry beer and the lemon beer which we also tried.

Afterwards we found a cute restaurant on the water that we had lunch at and i introduced emily and chris to linenkugel (which i may have spelled wrong).

I think its safe to say fun was had by all.

Two Almost Victories

Last night We headed over to nationals park not expecting to see much, instead we saw two close wins!

The first was in the presidents race. The pittsburgh pirates had brought thier perogies to do a 3 legged race with the presidents, and with the help of oliver onion teddy almost won his first race, till the two of them tripped and fell and Abe and Hanna Jalapeno took the lead.

The second was that the nationals were behind 2-1 and the last batter gets up and hits a dinger alllllllllmost out of the field, but instead directly into the center fielders glove to end the game :(

10 pm TV

Lately we've been going to the gym at 10pm. Its nice because there are actually machines available, and it gives me time to eat and digest before exercising.

The one drawback is that nothing is on tv!!! There are 4 televisions, and one tv shows sports recaps, one shows some late night crime scene drama show (last night may have been law and order), a third shows Nancy Grace, and the fourth is static.

The sports highlights is interesting for maybe 5 minutes till they show the stuff i am interested in and then I have 25 more minutes that need to be occupied.

The crime scene shows are never interesting.

Nancy Grace, which i've NEVER watched before, somehow only reports the most depressing and violent news imaginable. Last night, for the entire time i was down there they reported on "wife and two kids killed, hubby refuses to comment"...yes, thats right, Hubby. lets lighten up this report a bit and call him hubby. I didnt watch the show, but I assume Hubby is the murderer.

Static basically is the most interesting channel.

Thank goodness for my ipod

Weekend a Day Late

This weekend Peter and I hung out with Tristan and Mike before they left us for Wisconsin.

First we went to the air show where we all got burnt, but it was a lot of fun to see all the planes. We went into one of the decoy Marine One's and talked with the pilot (another sox fan!), but one of his crew members looked no older than 16! it was crazy! I love the planes, but I really hate their use, and I wish there was a way for these engineering marvels to not be related to the armed forces :(

We then went to the nationals phillies game. All the fans were for the phillies, and I was more or less neutral. I opted for Hard Times Cafe over Ben's Chili bowl, and I decided I think i prefer hard times cafe. It started to sprinkle so I left to go up under the overhang. Just as i got under the cover it started pouring like you wouldnt believe. The teams went running off the field and the grounds crew lept into action! The tarp began to roll out....and then it began to roll back. Yes, thats right, they put the tarp on UPSIDE DOWN and had to flip it, letting the grounds get much more wet. Oh nationals, cant you do anything right?

Start Trek and the Thermals

I went with Peter, Joe, Laura, and Matt to see Star Trek in IMAX the other day and it was awesome as expected. I have a few nerdy complaints though. One is that Vulcan and the snow planet were much to large and close together. They would surely suck each other into their gravitational fields and slam into each other. Also as pete pointed out (co worker not boyfriend) they went into warp drive, then tossed kirk out of the ship and somehow he landed on the snow planet only a few feet from where they started. Other than that the movie was great!

Joe and I saw the thermals again last night. As always I liked them a lot. The problem is I'm not so fond of their new CD. Its just boring and repetitive. its not terrible or anything, I just prefer their old stuff. Plus, i'm getting old and 10:30 shows on week nights are a lot for me. Also the floor of the black cat is getting stickier. My feet stuck to the floor and it was too hard to dance around to the music, so i was forced to stand pretty still and just bob a bit.

Shopping Etc

First the etc then the shopping

Sat night after wicked I met up with leslie to go to a roof top party in her neighborhood. The party was fun, the drinks were good, and the people were nice....but then we realized that the building that the roof looked out on had multiple windows open with multiple couples having sex. WTF. we are talking like 4 separate windows. One of the kids even climbed up onto a higher part of the roof to get a better veiw.

Sat during the day, back at chelsea market we sumbled upon a sferra sheet sale. I bought the two softest sheet sets and a duvet for only 250 bucks total, when if you know sferra this should have cost around 700 bucks or more! and its a great pattern too. I got back to the hotel and told my family about this, so we returned to the sale so they could all buy similar stuff. This was one of the best deals i have ever stumbled upon!!!

Food, the good, the bad, and the awesome

As always, NYC has a lot to offer in terms of food.

Friday night for my grandmother's birthday we went to 81 for my grandmother's eighty fifth birthday. The food was great, and they had plenty of vegetarian options. I had the ricotta ravioli, and the cauliflower steak with green beans. Very good. I may try making that on my own.

After dinner the chef Ed Brown gave us a tour of the kitchen. Very cool to see. The most interesting part to me was the meat in pressure sealed containers sitting in low temperature baths of water slowly cooking. If I ate meat I'd go right out and get a pressure machine.

The Bad restaurant, which was really the worst restaurant I've been to in NYC in a long time was China Grill. There was no good vegetarian option, so they made me just a plate of lo mein which came out way too spicy. We also got "crispy spinach" which was too greasy, and a side of wasabi mashed potatoes which was the only good part.

The Awesome food was start to finish my lunch on sat. In Chelsea market Leslie and I split a plate of crudites and a grilled cheese sandwich with figs at the green table, and then walked around the corner to la Madeline for the best macaroons ever. They had every flavor imaginable, and were exactly like the kind you'd buy in paris. I highly recommend going there (instead of magnolia).

Weekend in NYC

I had a great weekend in NYC. I'll write about it in 3 installments. 1. Theater. 2. Food. 3. Shopping etc

Sat night I went with my family to see wicked. I had wanted to see it, but I was kinda bummed that was taking up time I could have been out with friends. But I went anyway. and it was AWESOME. I cant wait to get the soundtrack and torture peter with that next :) Maybe wicked will even come through dc again and i can see it again. It was a good story that was funny and sweet and all the actors were so great.

(I picked the shortest post for this morning because I have to run to a meeting, but more tomorrow!)