She Likes It

P.S.

Our cat smells like poop.

Someone in here is a nerd

I just emailed the Companion Cube. That in and of itself is no big whoop. I probably do that a hundred times a day. The reason...actually, now that I think of it, it is not noteworthy, just another piece of evidence that I am a big nerd.  It read, in its entirety, "Do you think Roast Beef is going to cheat on Molly with a flight attendant??"

Now, if you don't read Achewood then 1) you're crazy and 2) you don't know what the h e double hockey sticks I'm talking about.  If you do however read Achewood then OMG! Do you think Roast Beef is going to cheat on Molly with a flight attendant??  I mean normally I would say no, but she's getting him drunk on the plane! His morals are being loosened by that demon Chivas!

Um, yeah, so I'm a total nerd.  But you knew that.

April

April is a huge birthday month for me.  So much so that I don't think I can support another friend whose birthday even borders this month.  Seriously, here's the list:

• Dad
• Sister
• Niece
• TWO cousins
• Companion Cube
• THREE Good friends

All those people suffer present-wise because I, well, because I panic sometime around March about all the birthdays I have to shop for and then end up getting crappy stuff or nothing for most of them. It's sad really.   So, please no more Aries!   And now that I think about it, those in late March and early May get hosed too.

But speaking of birthdays, I did score one great present this year at least. I got the Companion Cube a trip to Colorado for his birthday. We're going to The Overlook Hotel and doing the ghost tour and probably skulking around the National Park.  We're going this Friday!  I can't wait. It's going to be awesome.

The giving of the gift was pretty sweet too. I had been talking up the present I got him for about two weeks when his birthday came rolling around. I had purchased a copy of the book and, taking my friend Christy's idea, made a bookmark that had "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" typed repeatedly down the front. Then smack in the middle, I hid the details of our trip.  He unwrapped the book and although he was very nice, you could tell he was a little disappointed that this book was what I had been talking about for two weeks.  Ha!  I love it when a(n evil) plan comes together.

I wonder if it'll be spooky. I kind of hope it will, but then again, I kind of hope it won't.

dont-invite-morrissey-to-your-birthday-party care of nataliedee.com

ouch

My head hurts. Wah! (Illustration of said ache from Natalie Dee.)

Have you ever started to tell a story and about half way through it you realize that there's no point to your story? That's been happening to me a lot lately. And the question that plagues me is whether or not to continue the story. Should I continue to drone on and bore whomever I'm talking to just so they can have closure? Or should I just abruptly stop and let us both get on with our lives?

The new G2 tastes like fake sugar drink. I should have had a regular Gatorade. Wah!

Last night I met some people from Mouthfulsfood.com, a site I heard about through a very nice woman I randomly met in San Francisco last weekend. I'm way psyched to join in on their food adventures in the city. How cool is that?

Is it too early to go home? Wah!

news in brief

So I am going to be making a concerted effort to blog more. I got out of the habit and now I feel like I am not writing enough. So there may be more "state of the union" type posts here instead of stories, but at least there'll be something instead of the tumbleweed that's been residing here lately.

You know, this picture doesn't have anything to do with anything, except I like it, so there.  I stole it from the ever awesome GloopyMart. I might start saying that around the house while picking up the kitty, instead of poking her with a pencil which is what I normally do. (You know, while no one is looking.)

So, went to see Jens Lekman last night at Neumo's. T'was pretty great. Even with fools screaming, "You're my hero, Jens!" and the like. I guess it's better than "Freebird!" Jens, she says as if she knows the dude, has a great voice and the show was very entertaining, with backstories filling in as stage banter. And the music is oftentimes soaring, as if one were in a movie. Plus, the adorable Swedish accent that comes through makes one swoon. Highly recommend if you like that sort of thing.

Not so highly recommended is shopping for marine (I know, right?) equipment on my debit card, thank you very much.  Some jackass decided that I should pay for his/her purchases and ran my bank account six feet into the ground. I wish I could say, "No, thanks, as you can see from these purchases for BeardBoy's Companion Cube's upcoming birthday and this very expensive meal that yes, I very much enjoyed, but I did pay a lot of money for, I don't need any help dwindling my funds. But thanks for playing!"  Sadly, I do not get to say that. I suppose this is payback for all those funds I extorted from Britney Spears a million years ago. Sigh. As if the jail time and community service I did weren't enough. Damn you, Universe, and your stupid Karma. (Yes, yes, I know it's Dharma, but I don't want to sound pretentious, OKAY?)

On top of that nonsense, do you know that the stupid tournament picker didn't save my picks for anything past the final four? I'm so mad. Not that there's money on it or anything, but dang it that's annoying. As a result, I haven't watched a single game this year!  Although I think I will watch the UNC/WSU game tonight.  Should be exciting to see the Heels give the Cougs a good licking.

Anyway. So that is going on. Otherwise things are pretty good.

I made more chevre! This time I purchased some herbs de provence to roll it in and also rolled some in pepper and another bit in paprika. I know! So fancy! And delicious, I might add. I think I will bring some to the housewarming party we are going to on Saturday.

PS Guess what? I bought some presents for the Companion Cube! It's totally not cake, but now that I think about it, maybe I should get him a cake.

french laundry - part 1

If you've talked to me in the last month or so you know that I've been all a gush about my friend inviting me to go to French Laundry [also wiki] with her. 

As I mentioned before, I've never even considered eating at a three-star (Michelin) restaurant before.  Mostly due to cost, but also because I'm too lazy to work that hard for reservations and there's that fact that I'm such a slob, I'd be sure to spill and embarrass myself.  Luckily for me, my friend had AmEx on her side for the reservations and I wore solid black to keep the spills from showing too considerably.

The other reason could also be that there are only 5 restaurants in the US that have a three-star designation and it's been oh about a million years since I've been out of the country further than Canada or Mexico. 

If you're interested, here are the five current (2008) as stolen from 3 star restaurants:

• Le Bernardin, New York
• Joel Robuchon, Las Vegas
• Jean Georges, New York
• Per Se, New York
• French Laundry, Yountville

Hmm. Maybe I can talk my sister into going to Robuchon before they depart Vegas! 

ANYWAY.  Food, yes.  We flew down to San Francisco on Friday on one of the brand spanking new Virgin flights.  First class, woo hoo! Which, by the way, I'm totally ruined now.  No, cramped shitty seats for me anymore! No more flights without radio, seat-to-seat IM, actual meals and unlimited beverages. Ooops. Drifting again.

Anyway, anyway! So we flew down Friday at noon, picked up our dinner companions (Artur and Simon), and drove up to Napa.  Arrived about 15 minutes prior to our 6 p.m. reservations.  I was by far the MOST excited person in the car, but I think I held it together pretty well.  We had the option to choose between a vegetarian and the chef's tasting menus.  Of course, I went omnivore. 

I think I still need some time to digest (har-har) my thoughts about the experience, so this is not a review at all, but merely a retelling of what we had. My meal consisted of:

basketball

So, I just set up this year's (non-monetary) basketball pool and sent out the invites to the usual suspects.  If you didn't receive an invite and you'd like to participate, just send me an email and I'll add you to the list.  The more trash talkers the better, right?  Too be honest, I'm usually the only trash talker. The rest of my friends/family are much nicer than I am and steadfastly REFUSE to be baited. I hate that. Those a-holes take the fun out of everything!

Last year I almost won someone else's monetary pool, by virtue of being the only person to have picked OSU to win it. I couldn't fathom them losing two major championships in one year - to the same university no less.  Even though I am also a Gator fan.  Good thing I have my Government Bribe money this year so I will be saved the disappointment of not winning 500 bones again. I have such a hard life.

News update

Couple things to announce:

1. My cheese turned out pretty well! Tasted more like Feta than cheddar, but still was tasty. AND no one who came over to try it died! I'm calling that a victory.
2. I've decided to cancel the big birthday bash this year. Too many people were having conflicts including most of the places I wanted to have it at.  Apparently June is wedding season. Bah.
3. I'm going to French Laundry next weekend!  I've never eaten at a 3 Michelin star-rated restaurant before. A friend of mine got reservations and has very nicely invited me to come with. Love! I'm very excited. I hope I don't do anything embarrassing.

The Golden Compass

Golden Compass

Publisher: Sega
Platform: PSP
Category: Action Adventure
Release Date: 12/3/07

I guess, technically, one needs to finish a game before one can review it properly, but, honestly? I couldn’t make myself. Sure, the game started out pleasant enough and – having read the His Dark Materials trilogy already – I was charmed to be riding around on one of its best characters, Iorek the armored bear. These opening scenes were, as most “training” sequences are, pretty easy, but still enjoyable.

However, after I’d smashed a bunch of wolves and jumped around the North Pole, I was transported back to the beginning of the novel’s story, that is, in Oxford College. It’s strange that the game has you training on Iorek and then promptly plonks you down as just Lyra so all the things you learned about smashing and blocking with the bear are pretty irrelevant. I suppose eventually the game gets back to Iorek, but I didn’t get that far. In fact, I didn’t even get out of the college. There was too much that didn’t work: out of synch sound, repetitive and weird animation during talk scenes, annoying child voice actors, and one-hundred-and-one mini-games. Of course, if you love mini-games then this is the game for you and you can disregard my complaints. Me? Not a huge fan. Don’t get me wrong, I do like puzzles and don’t mind mini-games that involve those. These were not puzzles, but more balancing and wiggle around the analog stick quickly type things. Ugh.

So basically, I found the game frustrating…and the slow loading and dialogue lag time didn’t make things any better. After having the game sitting around the house for a month while I was happily rolling up Katamari, I spent about 1 hour trying to get Golden Compass started before I gave up and stuck it back in the mailer and sent it on its way back to Gamefly.

This makes it 0/2 of Golden Compass adaptations that I liked.  4/10

Band Meeting!

I wish I could fake Murray's accent when I called roll call, but since I can't I guess I won't have a roll call.

Anyway. On today's agenda:

1. Gigs. We haven't got any.

2. Beard Boy will heretofore be referred to as the Companion Cube.

3. In a huge step forward from last night's seriously exciting events - that is, cutting poop off the kitty's fur - tonight will be the first ever Waxing of the Cheese!  And no, that's not a euphemism. I can't wait!