18 JAN 2010

Hey hey! It's almost 19 JAN but not quite yet! I am getting ready to go pick Carrie up from the airport as her flight is getting in at around midnight. What a crummy day of travel for her, but I'll be very happy to have her back.

I did indeed end up being lazy yesterday. I did not go to the Y, but I did go to the draft at Redcap's and it was pretty decent. My only round loss was at the hands of Lucas Siow, and I would have won had I been on the play instead of the draw. That's not so bad. I also watched "In Bruges", which is one of the best movies I have seen in a while. Excellent writing, great characters; to be honest, it reminded me of Kurosawa at times. I will probably end up buying it. I started watching "The Hurt Locker" but stopped about a half hour in, unimpressed.

Work today was rather dang good. It was Chris and I, joined by Maura at noon. It's MLK day and it was surprisingly busy, especially after 11AM, which is when I assume most Penn kids woke up. I had some leftovers after work and went to the Y early so as to still be able to make Gaga practice at 5pm. My workout was good (if sweaty) and I finished up just before 5pm, but I had received a text from Benn that he was feeling ill and wanted to bump practice. Ah well!

I spent some time at home doing dishes, cleaning Santa's box, etc. The house looks decent. The new bench stone is also GREAT. I sharpened the ancient Chicago Cutlery paring knife tonight and it's working like a charm. I made some delicious chicken burritos with peppers, onions, orange cauliflower, and kohlrabi and some other secret junk. I also watched "In the Heat of the Night", which is a Netflick that has been sitting on our DVD player for over a month. It was dang good, to be sure and an appropriate choice for MLK day. Kim was kind enough to lend me her car again, so I am going to go grab it in about 20 minutes and head to the airport. Man, I am looking forward to getting to bed tonight! It's a beautiful, warm night, though, and I am looking forward to getting out of the house for a spell as well. On that note, our house is still so ludicrously warm that I can barely stand to wear socks.

17 JAN 2010

Well, hello! It's Sunday morning and, as predicted, it has felt like a strange weekend. It has been really fun, though.

On FRI night, Colin, Kim, Rachelle, Sean, Jake and I went to the Kingdom of Vegetarians for a giant dim sum feast. It was indeed quite fantastic. We were presented with WAY more food than we could ever hope to eat. It has been a while since I've had a food-consuming experience like that! Oof. After dinner, we hung out at the 20-Sided House, drinking Four Loko, which is possibly the gnarliest malt liquor on the market, listening to music and playing cards. The rest of the group went to some bike messenger event at Elena's around midnight but, having been to more than one bike messenger event at a bar before, I decided to instead go home and catch some sleep.

I woke up fairly early on SAT and headed to the farmer's market at Clark Park. There were fairly slim pickin's, but I ended up getting enough good stuff to conjure up and extremely delicious omelet when I got home. Sean, Benn and I were going to get together for Gaga practice, but Benn had been up for something like 36 hours straight working on getting Redcap's ready for the grand reopening, so we remanded practice until TUE. Since I was feeling a little stir crazy and it was an absolutely beautiful day, I headed to Fante's to pick up an Arkansas bench stone, which I have wanted for quite some time. Man, I LOVE that store; I was in there for a good half hour just looking at stuff after I picked out which stone I wanted. I then headed up to Whole Foods and stocked up on some groceries, stopping at Trader Joe's on my ride home to re-up Santa's nutritious food supply. I headed to Redcap's around 6pm to see the new space and play some games. The store looks wonderful! I ate way too much tomato pie and played a few rounds of a game where the players are a team of scientists trying to stop the spread of infectious disease around the globe (the name is totally slipping my mind). The players are competing against the game itself rather than one another, which is neat. Around 10pm, a big group of us all headed to 20-Sided house to watch "The Faculty", which I had not seen since it first came out on VHS. I straight-up passed out on the couch when I got home and only crawled into bed when Santa knocked something large off of the dresser in the bedroom.

I woke up pretty early again today and have just been bumming around so far, picking things up here and there. The house is kind of a mess and I'd like to have it looking good by the time Carrie gets home tomorrow night. It's cold and really rainy right now and I am debating what to do with my day. I was considering trying to head to the Y soon, but that is seeming rather unappealing to me right now. I am probably going to whip up another omelet (why am I loving these things so much lately?) and read some of the Sunday Times and see where the day leads from there. Two things I am definitely doing today: the draft at Redcap's new space and watching "The Hurt Locker", which I had been sitting on for a few days in hopes of the new projector getting here. Hopefully some inspiration strikes me at some point this morning.

14 JAN 2010

Well, well. It's been a few days!

WED was fun! We had a movie night at our house and watched the film "Moon". It was okay, but not great. Having company was nice. Baxter, Kim, Colin, Rochelle and Jessica all came over and we ate a ton of chips, salsa, guacamole, and popcorn. In fact, that was all that I had for dinner not counting the five beers so that may have contributed to my tired state on THU morning.

Let's discuss THU now! That was yesterday. It was a whirlwind of a day. Work went by quickly and when I got home, I only had a couple of hours before Carrie had to go to the airport for her trip to MPLS. We decided that she should take a cab just to be safe despite the fact that Kim offered to let us borrow her car, which would have resulted in a much long trip time. Even though we checked departure delays IMMEDIATELY before Carrie left and we were supposedly all clear, it turned out that she wouldn't make the ATL-MPLS leg of her flight due to a delay. She had the option of either staying overnight in ATL at a hotel or coming back on FRI morning for a departure time of 6AM. Needless to say, neither option was all that appealing. I borrowed Kim's car anyway and picked her up, a trip which reminded me how extremely stressful it is to drive in the city of Philadelphia.

I went to Penn draft and had a slightly irritating time. We had a six-man pod of M10-M10-Zendikar with a couple of good drafters and a couple of really bad drafters, resulting in four players running black and no one picking green cards until pack three. My only loss was to the guy who won the whole thing (and ended up playing green cards), so that was OK. Magic has just been really frustrating me lately. MAN!

One other note on THU: when I arrived home from work, I found an explosion of feathers and a severed sparrow head atop our welcome mat. Thanks, Santa! Carrie got a few funny pictures which I might post when she gets back. Before I had a chance to clean it up, I heard one of our landlord, Aaron's, kids crying loudly in the alleyway outside of our place and I think it's because he saw the pile of bird death. I had an extremely vivid dream this morning that Santa was killing and offering us increasingly large animals, including other cats and climaxing with a bum (human)!

Today is FRI and so far there is not a lot to report. The day kicked off with a really early wake-up call so that Carrie could get ready to catch her cab to the airport at 4:45AM. Work was SLOW and boring; the day was just draggin' and I didn't feel very animated at all. I was sent home early and now I am at home just relaxing. It's probably about time for a nap. One crummy thing: the new projector has yet to show up, which means it probably won't be here until next TUE since it's MLK day one MON. DANG! Carrie is going to be gone for the whole weekend so I am anticipating watching some movies, going to the Y, and cleaning. Oh! We are having Lady Gaga practice tomorrow to prepare for our show on 30 JAN, so that is cool, too! I am really excited to go to the farmer's market tomorrow and buy a bunch of veggies and cheese. BREAKFAST FEAST!

Well, it's time for that nap. Santa has been motionless and extremely quiet since I have been home and it's giving me some serious inspiration. My nap muse!

11 JAN 2010

Should I change the name of this web log to Give us This Day Our Nigh-daily Ted? Perhaps.

I went back to work today and it felt nice, a return to normalcy, of sorts. I am already not looking forward to this weekend, as Carrie is heading to MPLS and I will probably waste my weekend again. The projector should be here in the next few days and I am getting ANXIOUS for its arrival. The UPS guy was milling around outside of work today for a while and it was driving me bonkers. IS IT HERE OR NOT, YOU BROWN IMP-DEMON?!

Last night was really fun. Carrie and I went to a going-away dinner party at Jake's apartment in South Philly (he is moving into Andy Gunn's old room at the 20-Sided house) and had a really fun time. Jake made pirogies and lamb stew (very delicious but OOOOOHHHH my stomach this morning) and we played a board game where everyone writes captions for New Yorker cartoons. It was called something like, "The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Board Game, and here is a photo:A bunch of fun friends were there: Jake, Colin, Kim, Benn, Rachelle, Baxter, Jessica, and Sean. Good group!

I am quickly loosing my ability to type properly (some might even argue that I never have that ability) so off I go to the nap chamber. The plan for tonight is to make some chili, hit the Y (got lazy and skipped on Friday), then just relax at home. Off I go!

09 JAN 2010

Here it is again! Another Saturday night! WHOOPIE! Just kidding, I have no plans for tonight at all. Carrie is gone until tomorrow afternoon and I am not really feeling inspired to look for anything to do. I was considering seeing "Daybreakers" at the Bridge, but then I remembered how excruciating it is to watch movies on opening weekend at The Bridge. I was hoping to get to the Y after work but my nap overextended it's welcome by about an hour, resulting in what would have been a very short opportunity to exercise. I'm probably just going to do an online draft and watch a movie or two tonight, though I should dedicate at least a quarter-hour to folding laundry.

Work was painfully slow, though a new employee named Ezra had his first day, so I got to show him the ropes while we stood around and waited for customers to show up. It's strange to say it, but I am actually excited for the Penn kids to get back and give me something to do again as the last two days of work have been some of the slowest since we've been open.

OK, I am going to brew up some coffee and grab a snack. LATERS!

08 JAN 2010

What a strange day! Today was the first time that I have worked a full shift since the middle of December and it was DEAD. Fortunately, Chris was there to trade jokes with me and he taught me how to turn my toots into cats. Aside from that, I made four espresso drinks and fidgeted more than I have before in my adult life.

My post-work plan was to go to AMFDM's first show in Delaware with the 20-Sided House friends, but Santa escaped outside when I got home and I couldn't lure him back in time to catch a ride with Benn. Dang! Ah well, I will probably just nap and maybe go to FNM later. It'll be nice to relax a little before another workday tomorrow.

Carrie is on a ski trip in northern Pennsylvania with Colleen & Danny and his friend circle. It snowed a lot last night, so it will probably be great skiing weather! I have never been a huge skier, so I decided to sit it out and be a bum at home instead.

I bought a new jacket yesterday and here is what it looks like:

I hope it makes me look like less of a dope than the model here.

Dang it, Santa! Where the heck did you go! I want to take a nap here!

Oh! Last night was fun. We went to Vietnam Cafe with Jessica for dinner. We all had various martinis and tons of delicious food. After dinner, we went to Queen of Sheeba and did karaoke. I sang "Senorita" by JT and "This is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan. People were actually dancing and going crazy! It was strange but fun.

07 JAN 2010

Dang, I missed a day of blog! That's OK. It has been such a lazy week so far. I did not do too much today at all. I did do a little bit of cleaning and vacuuming but not a lot else. I also ran some errands, though, including putting the extra copy of The Sims 3 that we had in the UPS mailbox. Oh yeah! Our nice neighbors at 634 S. 48th Street were kind enough to hand deliver the mis-delivered copy of the Sims 3 right to out front door after the idiot UPS guy delivered it to them (what an idiot!). In case it isn't obvious, both Carrie and I are really disappointed by the constant failures of our UPS/USPS/FedEx carriers, even though we have now trained them to put our packages behind our couch. There should be some kind of rating site like "Rate Your Lettercarriers" and you could totally burn them on the Internet! One can dream, right?!

We did spend a ton of money in the past couple of weeks, but it's OK. Rent, a new digital projector (arriving in the next week or so [no thanks to you, UPS man!]), and I may order a new winter jacket tonight, still. Anyone who wants my old winter jackets: let me know. They are all either designed for people with very short torsos or on the verge of disintegrating.

We are going to go to Vietnam Cafe with Jessica in a minute here as a thank you for taking care of Santa while we were gone. Thanks, Jessica! We will feast on fried noodles and drink some Yellow Tail chardonnay.

Why do I have to go to work tomorrow? WHY!

05 JAN 2009

Today is day two of my pseudo-vacation week and it's going fine. I cleaned up the bathroom thoroughly yesterday and started picking up other parts of the house and today I am going to clean up our living room. Our house is a disaster right now. It's probably almost as messy as it has been since we've moved in! Dang.

Despite the searing cold, I managed to bike to the Y last night for the first time in something like twelve days and it felt great. I started doing bench presses for the first time ever in my exercising life and man! It sure felt weird. I am going to try and change up my routine a little and strengthen some muscle groups that I haven't been working on much. We had a really great (though late) dinner of curried veggies which we zested a good amount of lemon peel into with my new zester and MAN was it delicious! Viva la zest!

It seems that I am going to get a promotion at work. Huzzah! I have been feeling pretty unmotivated recently, between the drag of the lack of customers and the seeming indifference of some of my coworkers, so this is good. A little extra dough would be nice, too.

We did a six-man draft at Redcap's yesterday and it was alright. Good dudes showed up and my deck was solid, but I had a REALLY disappointing last game in round three wherein I didn't draw a land on nine consecutive draw steps. I love Magic sometimes. There were some contractors tearing apart the video store while we were there, which was kind of cool to be present for. They had, however, propped open both of the doors and the heat was off, so it was quite a frigid draft. I am excited to see the new space, at any rate.

I just checked IMDB to see what is coming out on DVD this week and the biggest title is "The Final Destination". Dang. Next week is the release of both "The Hurt Locker" and "Moon", so that's exciting. Why the heck is there so much promotion for "Legion"? I remember seeing the trailer for that like six months ago, and it's not even out until the end of this month. Ah, I should probably be putting this stuff in TGGYH, which I will be updating later today anyway. Bah!

04 JAN 2009

Today is day one of five this week which I have off, followed by the next three consecutive days and Sunday as well. Capogiro Penn is closed due to the excessively lengthy Penn break, of course. My plans include thoroughly cleaning the bathroom and putting our new cabinet in (Justin broke the last one during his last visit by putting his head through one of the doors), playing in a paper Magic draft at Redcap's at 2 with Tom and a couple of his friends, and going to the gym when Carrie gets done with work. The rest of the week should be more cleaning and organizing. We might also buy a new projector this week as a birthday present for the both of us, which is very exciting.

I fell asleep last night while watching Up, which is strange since I really enjoy that movie.

The past week or so has been really odd in that I have almost no concept of what day of the week it is. All my usual landmarks are awash in year-end blur, and the situation doesn't seem like it will get any better before next week. Ah well.

Santa is attacking the foam from the packaging on the cabinet we got for the bathroom from Ikea. And life goes on.