I mean, who doesn’t love a good meat raffle?

• We received our stroller as a gift this weekend, so when we got home, I immediately put it together, put George in it, and then tore around the house with it. I had to test the handling and maneuverability, right? George didn’t like it so much and figured out how to jump out of it. We really dig the stroller, though. It’s super light, folds up easily nice and small, handles well, and is orange.
• Why doesn’t anyone sell replacement plastic shovel heads? All of the shovels that I see in Home Depot have plastic/poly heads, and while they work well and are ergonomic, they also break after one of two heavy snowstorms. Rather than having to pay $20 for a new one, why can’t I just buy a replacement head since they just snap on anyways? Anyone know where I can buy them? I currently have two broken shovels that I’d rather not have to replace.
• We finally watched An Inconvenient Truth this weekend. It’s an impressive film, considering that it’s basically just a glorified Powerpoint presentation, and it’s not as if we needed convincing of the importance of changes that need to happen or the real crisis that the world is facing. But it’s really well done, makes it’s points in a clear and understandable manner, and it’s amazing to see Al Gore so passionate about something. If he had only shown that sort of passion back in 2000, this country would be in a very different place.
• The frequency of visits to bars has diminished to practially nothing over the past couple of years, reserved mainly for meeting up with friends for drinks. And I’m totally OK with that. I feel all old now, wanting them to turn the music down, and is there some place we can sit down? I don’t want to have to stand. But a vsit to a place like Lucky’s every now and then is ok by me. It sort of has that speakeasy vibe to it since it’s in the middle of nowhere in Fort Point Channel, which also makes for easy parking. Plus, having a build-in designated driver is always nice now.
• Sometimes, you just need to give in to that chocolate chip cookie craving. Especially when you’re seven months pregnant.
• Yes, we watch American Idol, and yes, I’m getting great pleasure out of the ongoing horrendousness of Sanjaya. At this point, with no one interesting or attractive left, it’s the only thing about the show worth watching. It’s like watching a big girly-haired trainwreck.

Probably the most popular thing I’ve ever done on this site is my food diary, which I did back in June of 2006. For whatever reason, people seemed to be fascinated either by what I eat, the consistency of my eating, or just the fact that I recorded it all for a week. Well, for the past couple of days, I’ve been keeping a diary of sorts again. This time, however, I’m using Twitter to do it.

What is Twitter, you ask? Well, that’s a very good question, and not necessarily an easy one to answer. It’s a little like blogging, it’s a little like IM, but the basic gist of it is “A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?” You can update your status via the web, IM, or text message, and other people can follow what you’re doing. For a lot of people, the idea of creating or updating a blog is not something that they have the desire or time to do, but Twitter lets your friends and contacts know what you’re up to, that is if they want to know, and get update them via web or text message. You’re limited to 140 characters in a post, so you’re forced to keep it short. There are obvious uses for this service, most of which I have no need for in my boring suburban life. If you and your friends are out on the town in various places, a simple “i’m at such and such place” can let everyone know what you’re up to without having to call them or text them. The fact that none of my friends are that technologically advanced or the fact that we never go out on the town any more sort of defeats the purpose of that. But check out the Twittermap and try to tear yourself away from it. You watch in real time as people from all over the world post updates. Twitter is getting tons of hype, just like Flickr did a couple of years back. I don’t know if people fully understand what to do with this technology yet, but the possibilities are great.

For me, this seemed like the perfect way to keep track of not “what am I doing?” but “what am I eating?”. You can check out my updates here here or in the sidebar to the right or via RSS feed. Or you can sign up yourself and tell me and everyone else what you’re doing or eating or listening to.

• So I finally said goodbye to the old car and got a new one. After emailing a bunch of dealers for price quotes, i did some hard core negotiating, and got a pretty good deal. Within 18 hours of getting the quote, we had worked out the deal, I traded in the old car, and picked up the new one. It was a complete blur, but no time for second thoughts. So far, I’ve been very happy with the new ride, and I got to test out the handling in the snowstorm on Friday. I miss some things about the old car, like the great stereo and heated seats, but the new one is powerful, comfortable. roomy, and easy. This is the first time I’ve owned an automatic transmission in 9 years, but it’s been a surprisingly easy transition. I just don’t have to think at all. I love the way it looks, and the gas mileage is just as good as before. Yes, I feel guity that I didn’t get a hybrid, but it just didn’t fit me right now. I”m hoping that in a couple of years when they’re available in more car styles, I’ll trade this in for one. The first time I have to load in a stroller, and pack and play, toys and other junk, luggage, and George’s crate into the car, I’ll be glad that I got this one.
• We cruised down to my old stomping grounds in Providence on Saturday night for dinner at La Laiterie at Farmstead with Robert and Margaret. We just flat out loved this place. It was opened by the former cheese buyer and baker at Formaggio, and the couple have created a great space in quiet Wayland Square. They started with a cheese shop and eventually bought the space next door and opened a wine bar and restaurant. All things cheese are featured on the menu, from cheese platters to mac & cheese to grilled cheese to salads, “treats”, small plates, and entrees. Everything is fresh and seasonal, and they can pretty much tell you where every ingredient on the menu comes from, down to the farm/fisherman, and the name of the guy who dug it up/caught it. A great beer and wine selection, simple but flavorful preparations, and a great atmosphere makes me wish that this place was closer to us. It’s a perfect place to go, get a drink and a few small plates, and hang at the bar. Luckily, we were there with people who like to eat like we do, so we ordered a bunch of stuff and shared everything. Oven cured olives, white bean and parsnip brandade, house smoked trout, seared chicken livers with onion rings and bacon, a handcut pasta with duck confit and roasted fingerlings, grilled cheese with spiced eggplant jam and polenta fries, and a braised pork shank with couscous. The perfect finish was a cookie jar with six different kinds of cookies and local milk to dunk them in. It was our perfect kind of meal, and god, we ate a lot.
• We checked out a daycar facility near my office. It’s slowly becoming apparent to us that we are actually having a baby sometime soon. It’s sort of tough to judge places, and I’m sure some people can be really picky about different things. We mainly looks to see that the place was clean, people were friendly, and the kids were happy. None as happy as the youngest toddlers who we interrupted during their snacktime. They were all strapped into their booster seats at a low table, politely and silently waiting for their St. Patty’s Day cupcakes. They looked at us curiously, quickly became bored with us, and then went back to their cupcakes. They looked like a bunch of old men in a nursing home waiting for their snacks. It’s funny how at the beginning of life and at the end of life, your priorities are pretty much the same. Give me a cupcake and please change my diaper.
• After waiting and waiting for it to die, the awful metallic crunching noises coming from our garbage disposal suddenly got unbearably awful last week. It was time for a new one. I had no idea how easy or heard it would be to install a new one, but after checking out the Insinkerator website, it seemed pretty simple. Well, they were right. It was stupid easy to swap out the old one for a new one, and we decided to spend a few extra bucks to get the Evolution Compact, as it can handle pretty much anyone you throw it at and it incredibly quiet. So quiet that you’re not always sure if it’s doing anything. I can finally chuck those onion skins and lemon rinds right in there and not have to worry about fishing them out later. Plus, the grinding teeth are further down the drain, so I can worry less about getting my fingers chopped off, which is always nice.
• Good lord, there is now a “baby” category in my Google Reader. Most of the baby-related sites are still really boring and too girly for me, but there are three that stand out, and you don’t even need to be an impending father to find them funny. Metrodad, Neal Pollock’s Alternadad (whose book I am currently reading), and Steve Almond’s (of Candyfreak fame) Baby Daddy. It’s nice to see some guys keeping a sense of humor amidst the madness.
• Our neighbors across the street have put their house on the market and they had an open house yesterday. So they came over to our house, pulled up a seat, and spied on the people going into their home. That has to be tough to watch all of these people go into your house, root around in your stuff and judging you. Endless fun!
• So, is this for real, or is the real prank the fact that this is a complete hoax? If it is a hoax, they sure went to a lot of effort to pull it off.

With a baby on the way, there are all sorts of things that have to be decided. What to name him/her, what sort of crib, what sort of stroller, which pediatrician to use, which daycare to use, etc. The list is pretty much endless. There are thousands of little choices that will affect how this child grows up, what kind of person he or she will be, and what set of beliefs and morals will form the foundation of his or her existence. Of course, one of the most important one is the question of religion. I’m not referring to Catholicism or Judaism, but the religion of baseball.

As many of you know, we have a mixed marriage: I’m a die hard Red Sox fan, and somehow, I managed to marry a Yankees fan. Yes, the Lovely Suse is so lovely that I overlooked this important character trait and decided to marry her anyways. Despite growing up in a Connecticut town with mixed allegiances, her family fell on the wrong side of the fence and grew up rooting for the Yanks. Of course, this provided endless amusement for them as they watched me wallow in the misery of the Sox’s futility. As a true test of the strength of our relationship, we attended two Sox-Yanks games at Fenway in 2003 and 2004, with the Sox victorious both times. We would rarely talk about baseball in the house, and during televised games, we respectfully kept our gloating and taunting to a minimum.

As was only fitting, our wedding took place on the same day as game 4 of the 2003 ALCS, the infamous “Pedro throws Don Zimmer to the ground” game. Timing it perfectly, our daytime wedding ended at 4pm, and the first pitch was thrown at 4:20. We took over the hotel bar, with me, resplendent in my tux, and my fellow Red Sox fans on one side, and the Lovely Suse, still in her wedding dress, on the other side with her friends. It was a gut-wrenching game, with only the sheer bliss of my wedding day blocking out the pain of the result. Leaving for our honeymoon the following morning, we were away from American TV, with the only news of the rest of the series coming through BBC Sports newscasts, reported just after the rugby, cricket, and track and field results. It was agonizing waiting for the results as we were 6 hours ahead of the US, so the games had just ended as we were waking up. Looking back now, I’m glad that I was out of the country for the disastrous game 7. With other New Yorkers reveling in their victory, the sunny breakfast overlooking the vistas of Positano eased my pain. It was heartbreaking to read about it, but at least I didn’t have to experience it firsthand. I never watched the game, even when I got back home. Why would I want to experience that?

Fast forward to 2004, and all is right with the world. A miraculous comeback to defeat the Yankees in the ALCS followed by a sweep of St. Louis, and for once, I could gloat. But I didn’t. I kept my joy mainly to myself, and when it came time to visit Connecticut for Thanksgiving, I could hold my head up with pride. I didn’t rub it in their faces, I didn’t really bring it up at all. I just smiled. I knew how it felt being on the losing end, so I kept my mouth shut. Since then, there’s been an easing of tensions and a mutual respect. Still, as the impending birth gets closer and closer, I know it’s only a matter of time before a battle breaks out.

How do we raise this child? As a Red Sox fan or as a Yankee fan? I obviously have my preferences, as does the Lovely Suse. The way I see things is this: we live in Boston, all of the kid’s future friends will be Red Sox fans, he or she will be watching Red Sox games with Dad, and a visit to Fenway will occur early on. It’s tough raising a kid here and not have them end up Red Sox fans, even without parental encouragement. It just happens. How could I let our kid go to school wearing a Yankees hat and risk them getting taunted and beat up in the schoolyard? They’ll be alienated and subject to ridicule and not invited to birthday parties! It would be irresponsible to allow this to happen, right?

I suspect her family will begin showering this child with Yankee paraphernalia before he or she ever sees the light of day, so I can only implore my family and friends to do the same. I mean, what child wouldn’t want to watch Red Sox Baby: Raising Tomorrow’s Boston Red Sox Fan Today, featuring the voice of Ben Affleck? I suspect this battle will rage for a while until things sort themselves out, but remember, the soul of this child is at stake. Away from the darkness we shall lead him (or her).

• The closet is finally complete thanks to our fine friends at EasyClosets.com. They let you design your own closet, you send them the measurements, and they send you custom made parts in two days, including free shipping. Everything hangs from a metal bar that you mount on the wall with screws and toggle bolts, leaving the floor free for more junk. If anyone has ever used toggle bolts before, you know that they can hold a whole bunch of weight, and they require you to drill huge holes in the wall for them. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that our neighbor’s wall is just a few inches behind our wall, and those huge holes ended up in their wall as well. Whoops! Oh, and we originally hung the bar too high and had to redrill the holes lower. Yes, so we put twice as many holes in their wall as we needed to. Whoops again.
• We went car shopping this weekend. I was enjoying testing out the pickup and power of the car that we liked, and as we’re passing a cop driving in the other direction (and we’re not speeding at all), I jokingly ask the salesman who was in the backseat if a lot of people get pulled over on their test drives. He says all the time, but when they see that we’re from the dealership, they let us go. I turn onto a side road to test the car on some bumps, and a few seconds later, I see flashing lights in my rearview mirror. You’ve got to be kidding me. I just laughed, and when the cop came up and asked for my license and registration and then saw that I was on a test drive, told me to slow down and drove away. Nice.
• I’m going way out on a limb and say that Armando’s Pizza is every bit as good as Regina’s. What you miss is the North End atmosphere, the surly waitresses, and beer. What you gain is easy parking, no waiting, and the friendliest neighborhood joint around. The well done pie that we got on Saturday was the epitome of what I want in that style of pizza, and couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it. It was a thing of beauty. This is the place where we’ll be taking our kid out for pizza.
• The start of BBQ season at Formaggio. It gets more popular every year, and they’re practically sold out by 1pm. Luckily, we got the last of the pulled pork sandwiches, loaded with BBQ’d onions and cole slaw. That’s some good eats. Those things are so big that we have to split one.
• I’m all for daylight saving’s time, but why can’t they do it on Friday night instead of Saturday night. That would give everyone an extra day to adjust to the new hours, because right now, I’m struggling.
• I started eating oatmeal last week. Damn, oatmeal is tasty. This is the first time I’ve made it from scratch instead of using instant oatmeal (although I’ve made steel cut oats a couple of times), and with a drizzle of maple syrup and some brown sugar, and dried cranberries, that’s a hearty breakfast. On a crazy-cold morning, nothing beats a nice warm brekkie.
• Have I finally outgrown the Real World? With the exception of the second half of the Vegas season and a few episodes of the second NYC season, I haven’t missed a single episode. God, that’s sounds really pathetic. But for the last few seasons, the casts have been really pathetic and boring. Ok, after a few season of watching people get drunk and get into fights every night, it sort of gets boring. And the crazy people that they get aren’t fun to watch anymore. They’re just crazy. Maybe it’s me just outgrowing all things MTV, or maybe it has gotten worse. Is the current generation of early 20-somethings just totally uninteresting, or are they just doing a terrible job with the casting? There’s not a single likeable person in the entire bunch.

For years, I’ve been a car guy. Not in the gearhead sense of the word, as I pretty much have no idea what actually goes on under the hood, but I’ve always liked cars. I drool over fancy supercars, get excited about seeing a Bentley pull up beside me on the highway, and dream of someday winning the lottery and buying myself a Ferrari. I’ve always taken great pride in my own cars, keeping them nice and clean and shiny, making sure to take good care of them, so they take care of me.

I always saw cars as a sort of status symbol, and was proud of what I drove. I know it’s wrong and stupid, but that’s just the way I was. Before buying my first car, I did research for months, narrowing down my choices, before finally selecting exactly the right car for me. I didn’t know how to drive it (the only way to truly learn how to drive a stick shift is to drive one every day), but I figured it out, and loved it. The only things I really cared about was how it looked, if I could afford the car payments, and how fast it was. Nothing else really mattered. Well, after a few years and a less than noble exit, it was time for a new car.

I was still single, living in a fancy loft downtown, and living the life of a swinging bachelor. Of course, I needed a fancy car to go along with that image and lifestyle, so another, more expensive German luxury sedan was the only way to go, right? It felt a little ridiculous for a 25 year old to be driving a car like this, as I always saw it as something to strive for and to achieve later on in life, but it was happening. I loved it. It was everything I ever wanted in a car, fast, muscular, and sexy, and I felt proud to be driving it. I felt like a member of some sort of exclusive club. Hey, I must be cool to drive a car like this, right? Girls are going to flock to me when they see what I’m driving, right? Well, ok, maybe a little. A couple years passed, my warrantee expired, and that’s when my love affair started to sour. Yes, I still loved my car, but I did not love maintaining it. What no one tells you is that it’s about three times more expensive to repair anything on this car than on, say, a Honda or a Ford. Oh, that sensor that does nothing important? That will be $400. Oh, you need new sway bars and ball joints? Oh, that will be $1000. I didn’t even know what most of these things were or did, but apparently, they needed to be replaced, so I was stuck. Since my first car didn’t last much longer than the warrantee, I never faced having to do these repairs and maintainance. Things kept going wrong. Nothing major, but every single time I brought it in, it cost me another $1000. And because these cars are tuned in a certain way, lots of parts get warn down a lot faster than normal. What the hell was I thinking? The car now has 105,000 miles on it, is due for a major catastrophe to occur sometime soon, and more and more random problems pop up every month. It’s time.

Yes, I’m aware of the symbolism of this purchase, the whole “having a kid so it’s time to ditch the sports car and get the Family Truckster” stage of my life, but it’s a lot more than that. Obviously, I’ve changed a bit since I bought my last car, with new and different priorities and attitudes. For the most part, I see cars as a big waste of money and resources, and I wish that I didn’t need one at all. Two different couple friends of ours have recently given up their cars altogether, and I wish that we were in a living and working situation where we could do the same. However, we both commute long distances to work and live in the burbs, so this is just impossible. I know not only the financial realities of cars, but also the environmental realities as well, and trying to live up to all of my own expectations is proving to be harder than I thought.

I don’t care about owning a fancy car anymore. Been there, done that. In the end, a car gets me from point A to B, and hauls my stuff where I need it to go. Paying extra for a name just doesn’t make sense to me anymore, and in the end, reliability, fuel economy, practicality, and maintainance costs are much more important. I know, I know. It’s so boring, but it’s true. Of course, I want to buy a hybrid. Unfortunately, that may not fit into the rest of the game plan. I’m environmentally conscious, but I’m also aware of the realities of my life and how I live. I haven’t completely ruled it out yet, but it’s getting close. I live in the Northeast and have to deal with the snow and ice, so on-demand 4 wheel drive would be nice, as long as it doesn’t eat into the fuel economy overall. I also like having the ability to haul stuff in my car, whether it’s a plate compactor for building our patio, bags of mulch, or pieces of assembly-required furniture, we’re always struggling to fit stuff into my car, and oftentimes can’t fit it at all. Bottom line, I want a little more space. I’m not talking big-ass SUV space, because I would have to kick myself in the nuts every morning as payback for driving one, but maybe mini SUV space. I “not allowed” to get a station wagon, and I’m OK with that, which doesn’t leave a whole lot to choose from. I’ve love to get one of the hybrid SUV’s, but they’re more than I want to spend, and in the end don’t get that outstanding gas mileage anyways. And yes, I still want my car to look good. I still like having pride in my car, and walking out every morning to a car that I think is ugly just won’t cut it. So my needs are as follows: good looking, decent space, good gas mileage, mid-priced, reliable, cheap to maintain. And for those of you who drive big SUV’s or fancy European luxury cars, I mean no offense to you. This is a personal decision that’s based on my own needs and philosophies. Who am I to tell you how to live or what to buy? This is just what’s right for me. I’ve pretty much decided what I’m going to get based on these criteria, but do you have any advice or suggestions? What should I buy?

• At long last, we have a nice big hallway closet. Since we don’t have a closet in our bedroom, and the back bedroom closet will soon be filled with all sorts of tiny baby clothes, the Lovely Suse now has a place to put her 350 pairs of shoes. We found our builder through our car mechanic, and not only did he do a fantastic job, matching up the new walls, plaster, and mouldings to the old stuff so it looks like the closet has always been there, but he did it for half the cost of the next lowest bid and got it done in three days. We’ll be using Sunny for lots more stuff! Next, an order from Easyclosets.com
• After the construction was finished, every surface in our house was covered in a fine layer of dust. We spent seven, yes, seven hours yesterday cleaning every single inch of it, including washing all of our drapes, bedding, and towels. Along the way, I discovered one of the reasons our bedroom has been so cold was because the caulking around the windows was all cracked. Which meant me re-caulking most of our windows and an afternoon making caulk jokes.
• After years of wondering if we unplugged the iron before leaving for work, we finally picked up one with auto-shutoff. Of course, when we took it out of the box, it already had broken pieces banging around the inside of it. The next one we bought starting leaking water all over the place. So, for the time being our old $10 iron continues to work like a charm. Just as long as we remember to unplug it.
• For an auction at the place where the Lovely Suse works, we auctioned off our services to teach a cooking lesson at some one’s house. Well, this weekend, we had to pay off, teaching and cooking for two couples. After a full day of prep, we tackled the potentially disastrous lesson of making homemade ravioli from scratch. We did a bunch of Italian cheeses with artichoke spread and olive tapenade crostini, a shaved fennel, blood orange, arugula, and pecorino salad, butternut squash ravioli with brown butter and sage, wild mushroom ravioli with parm, garlic and fresh thyme, and homemade nutella gelatto with crushed amaretti cookies. Thankfully, we were smart enough to prep enough of the ingredients so we weren’t cooking for four hours. We had our “students” mix up the dough, showed them how to roll the pasta out with our pasta machine, and how to fill them and cut them. All were willing participants, and did a really nice job, taking orders whenever we dished them out. All in all, it ended up being a fun night, despite the long hours of prep and long drive. We should rent ourselves out to do this as a side business or something.
• “Larry, get of my !@$#%&*? sciatica!”
• We independently came upon a middle name that we liked from the same unlikely source. And no, I’m not telling what it is.
• I didn’t drive my car the entire weekend. I’m trying to lessen the chances of anything happening to it before I sell it/trade it in. Luckily, I enjoy driving the Lovely Suse’s car. That little car has some spunk!
• I should be finishing my first Flash website this week. And no, it’s not mine.

As is pretty obvious from my posts here, I think a lot about what sort of foods I put in my body. From growing my own herbs, to shopping at farmer’s markets, to boycotting mega farm poultry and meat, I try to make sure that the ingredients that I use and the foods that I put in my body are are “good” as possible. “Good” meaning fresh and tasty, but also as morally good, helping to support local farmers and producers, good for the environment, etc. Yes, while I sit here all high and mighty on my “I’m better than you” throne, I have a major chink in my armor of food awesomeness: breakfast (please note that my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek).

Yes, like a good boy, I make sure to eat a good breakfast every morning. And by “good”, I mean sugar and preservative filled. I confess: I’m a cereal junkie.

I love my cereal. At any given moment, there are about 7 different boxes of it in my pantry, and it isn’t all pretty. Sure, I have my Kashi Go Lean and my bran flakes, but I also have boxes of Life cereal (possibly the greatest cereal ever created), Golden Grahams, Raisin Bran, Frosted Mini Wheats, Honey Bunches of Oats, Rice Crispies (the current favorite of the Lovely Suse), Honey Nut Cheerios, HoneyCombs… the list goes on and on. And we don’t even buy the real stuff, but the generic brands of it from Target because they’re dirt cheap (hello $1.97 for a box) and taste just as good as the real thing. I shudder to think about what’s listed on the ingredients, and I know it can’t be good. At least it’s not Fruity Pebbles or Cookie Crisp (all part of my breakfast at some point in my life), but still, with all of the thought and care that goes into every other food decision, why do I neglect the most important meal of the day?

That has all changed in the past two weeks. I have no idea where the idea came from, but suddenly, the Lovely Suse had the instant need to make homemade granola. A quick trip to the grocery store to buy oats, almonds, and dried cranberries, and an hour later we had a giant bag full of addicitively good granola. A handful of it along with some yogurt made a great tasting and filling breakfast. It has a little bit of saltiness to go along with the sweet to keep things interesting, and the dried cranberries give a little variety to the texture. After a couple of days of this, my stomach suddenly remembered why it stopped eating yogurt for breakfast and revolted. Whoops. Now, I simply take a handful of the granola and add it to some healthy cereal with soy milk, and I’m in business.

I’m sure I’ll miss my sugary cereals eventually, and I’ll occasionally have to have a bowl of my frosted mini wheats, but for the time being, I’m loving my new healthy brekkie.