Archive for September, 2007
- Happy birthday to the Lovely Suse. No one loves her birthday more than her, so it’s always fun to try to make it a good one. Please feel free to send her really nice gifts. Or cash.
- Repeating last year’s birthday dinner, we made a return visit to Neptune Oyster on Friday night. Last year, we found out that Susanne was pregnant about a day after the meal, so she felt a little bit guilty about the oysters and wine that she had polished off. This year, no such guilt! We went all out thanks to a gift certificate from Jon, Carolyn, Alex, and Rachel, and had a half doen oysters, fried cauliflower and white anchovies, languostines, both tuna and sea urchin crudo, a salad of salt cod, crispy lamb, pancetta, and mushrooms, and a bottle of prosecco to wash it all down with. God, we love that place. This was also our first dinner out alone since Tess was born, which was nice.
- Speaking of Jon, Carolyn, Alex, and Rachel, I’ve grown tired of having to say all of their names, so I’ve decided that they need a nickname. I’m pushing for either J-CAR or JARC, but the lovely Suse wants CARJ (spoken like a pirate, CAAAAARJ!). I think J-CAR has a nice ring to it. And if anyone wants to shorten our family name, i think the only way to go is PST (pronounced psssst).
- Congrats to Steve-o on the launch of Cake Financial. Now everyone go sign up and get some Cake!
- I mowed the lawn for the first time in about a month. I should be ashamed of myself. It’s so fried in some spots, but it was also jungle-like in other areas. I feel much better about it now. Hopefully the fertilizer will do good things for the fall grass.
- After growing tired of the nasty Brita pitcher in our fridge (not to mention the possible dangers of BPA) and begrudgingly having to buy bottled water for Tess, I installed an undersink water filter last week. $50 and 15 minutes later, we had fresh clean filtered water for all. The filters last for 6 months, there’s no real drop in water pressure, and the water tastes great. We likey.
- Tess hsa begun shoving her hand so far into her mouth that she’s making herself spit up. Nasty.And she’s starting to grab at stuff with her deathgrip, including George. Poor George. He’s just going to be abused by her for a while. Hopefully, he’ll forgive her.
- So the American version of Kitchen Nightmares premiered last week, and it was ok. Not nearly as good as the original British version, but that’s not a surprise. Fox makes it less about the food and logistics of the restaurant, and more about the personalities and conflicts and fights. And of course Ramsay plays the character of “Gordon Ramsay” rather than just being himself. He’s louder, more abrasive, and doesn’t act like he cares that much about the people or the restaurant, unlike in the original version. Plus, the show uses the same style of narration and editing that Hell’s Kitchen uses, which is really annoying. As long as they keep the outrageous fights coming, I’m sure it will be a successful show.
- I couldn’t figure out why my hits have pretty much doubled in the past couple of weeks. Then I looks at my stats page and saw why. Type “Mcdonalds” into google image search, and see what comes up on the first page. How ironic.
- I’m wearing socks for the first time in about three months, and I’m not very happy about it.
- I’ve fallen way behind on my TV watching, but last night, I had the Red Sox/Yankees game, that Pats, and the Emmy’s on at the same time. I had my remote control thumb working overtime. And I was also reading the Sunday papers and had both kids on my lap. If I only had a laptop nearby and a radio on, I would have hit media overload and my head would have exploded.
- My sushi rolling skills have seriously diminished over the years, but the Lovely Suse’s have dramatically improved. She even made one of those inside-out rolls with the rice on the outside, although each piece weighed about 3 pounds. I made up for my lack of skills with my deep frying skills. My first attempt at making tempura was a big success. I mean, what’s better than crispy deep-fried vegetables? I think they keys were using a combination of rice flour and regular flour and cold seltzer water. All of those bubbles make it extra crispy, I guess.
- I don’t want to name any names (but it rhymes with the Bubbly Booze), but it’s somebody’s birthday coming up this weekend. I just thought you should all know.
- I haven’t mowed the lawn in about 3 weeks. The rainless August and early September pretty much fried it, so it’s not looking too pretty right now. I need to get some fertilizer down and try to get the fall grass groing. Sorry for neglecting you, lawn. I promise I’ll be better about watering you next year.
- I spoken before about how much I love all things Method, but their customer service is also excellent. I recently broke my omop when the plastic handle snapped off, and I contacted them to see if anything could be done about it. Apparently, it’s a common problem that the designers have been working on fixing, and they’re sending me one of the brand new designs this week for free. They’re also changing their packaging to use a fully compostable bamboo-based package, which is also excellent. The customer service rep, Nancy, apologized that the new packaging wasn’t ready yet, so the omop would still come with the old packaging. This is the kind of company that I’m happy to support.
- If you have a Tivo (and every single one of you should), you can download a bunch of NBC’s pilots to watch early. A nice little marketing trick, but a very well executed idea. We watched Chuck, which was a little silly, a little funny, and pretty enjoyable. I’m not sure how it will hold up over multiple episodes, but I’ll give it a whirl. I guess I have a soft spot for computer geeks.
- I’m loving listening to old episodes of The BS Report. I mean, where else can you listen to two middle aged guys talk for an hour about the history of football video games or the current state of professional wrestling?
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