Maybe I'm just a fangirl, but I'm listening to the Tori Amos holiday album and I'm finding myself thinking wow, there really is no genre of music this woman can't improve, and make her own.

TBS reunion (is it still a reunion if it's only 2 people?) this weekend. Excitement!

Well, the stockings are hung by the front door with care (or nails, either one), and the tree is assembled, lit, and decorated. Every year since I bought this fake thing (2003), I've looked at it when it's first put together and not liked it. I tell myself I'm going to get a real one next year. Then, we light it and put all the ornaments on it (some hand-me-downs from my mom, some bought to forge our own Christmas traditions), and I sit back and love it. The holes are filled in, the spaces are capped, and--for the apt we're in and the space we have--it all works.

Merry Early December, everybody!

Just putting this out for any that haven't heard, but for those fans of nin's The Downward Spiral, there is a fan-produced dvd available of the performance of the album in its entirety done this past summer at Webster Hall in NYC. In addition to Interactive Menus, the dvd also features a photo gallery of stills from various fans' Flickr pages. It's a nice bit of live show that we won't be able to see when the inevitable "official" release comes out due to the lack of professional footage from that venue's show.

Info and links to the files can be found here.

It was really nice having all of the windows wide open yesterday. Today? I wish we didn't have to. As it were, the heater in the basement was turned up to "omg SO COLD OUT you guys" when we woke up this morning, so now some rooms are stifling, and some have small, cold breezes wafting through them. Oh well. Such are winters here in the 'Lidge.

We're nearly two weeks back from our trip to NY, and I realized that I've not really told anyone about it. I guess it's been a while since we've seen people. We stayed at Longfellow's in Saratoga, in a room that had a lofted bedroom! And not like a NYC, sleeping-with-your-nose-touching-the-ceiling loft, but a huge loft. We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant the first night (oh my god that was a lot of food), and at Hattie's the second night, which some of you may have seen during their appearance on Throwdown! (ep. 13). Now that was some good fried chicken.

Most of the rest of the time was spent bumming around the town, seeing the park we got engaged in, and picking up alcohol that isn't available in MA. Forgoing a big beer run this time (I only grabbed a 4-pack of Yuengling tallboys and a couple of 22 oz.-ers of Brown's whiskey Porter), we instead took to the liquor stores after reading an article about artisinal distilleries around the Hudson Valley and The Berkshires. Our biggest find was the Golden Harvest Farms distillery out in Valatie, NY (right near the MA border). They make their spirits from the apples right there, and we got a bottle of Core vodka, and a bottle of their apple and pear brandies (brandys?). I added the Single Malt whiskey to my growing collection of Hudson spirits. bunnyroo also got her own box of sweet white wine for the fridge.

And that's really been the most exciting thing going on in the last two weeks. There's a possibility that we'll get down to Brooklyn in November for the Brazen Head's cask fest again, and if so that looks to be a great time. How's everyone else?

Whew, was I behind in my writing assignments. But, I think I'm this close to being caught up. Last week's Hell's Kitchen recap is up on Just Eyeball It, with yesterday's episode to be posted soon. Starting Monday I'm lined up with three weeks of postings over at Those Beer Snobs. Something new every Monday for the rest of October! Yay!

This weekend we're off to Saratoga for our anniversary trip. Two years! I know! Although looking at BeerAdvocate's as-it-happens pictures of Oktoberfest makes me want to convince my lovely wife to hop a plane to Germany for our three-year. That's something done for a three-year, right? What say you, About.com?

3rd Wedding Anniversary:
Traditional Gifts: Leather
Modern Gifts: Crystal
Celebrating: Ideas and Symbols.

Now if all that doesn't say, "Week in Germany for Oktoberfest," then I don't know what does.

I am just as happy that it takes six hours to go from 9p to 11p, as I am sad and confused that it takes ten minutes to go from 11p to 2a.

I blame the weather.

I need to write two recaps for last week's 2-hour-long Hell's Kitchen, and I'm trying to muster up the wherewithall to do it, and it's tough.

Weekend was good. I wish I had enough money (or a job) so as to make Eastern Standard my weekly Saturday place to go in, have two or three drinks, and go about my day from there.

Still have two more beer reviews in note-form that need to be built into proper columns and posted.

Hmm, feel like I need to go out on a positive note here. Um, there's clean sheets on the bed. That's always nice. :)

...well, sort of. See, Brian Boitano currently hosts the greatest new thing to show up on the Food Network--the tongue-in-cheek What Would Brian Boitano Do Make? In this half-hour spotfest, Brian Boitano finds himself in a jam that only quick, ridiculously-easy-to-make food can get him out of! I was initially cool to the show but I'm warming up with each new episode, and I think I know why--this is the first person Food Network's put on in a long time that treats the all-important "home cook" demographic like they're older than 10 and know what paprika is. A lot of my disdain for the cast of characters they have on the network now comes from how they treat the audience. But that's a bar discussion for another time. One of the first things I noticed about Boitano is that since the show is filmed in his kitchen, we're using his tools. And one of those tools happens to be the Slap Chop. At least, I thought it was the Slap Chop. Closer inspection and the pause button on my DVR (thanks, technology!) led bunnyroo to find that while Boitano does not use the Slap Chop, he does use a slap chopper (made by the lovely Oxo corporation). We went out on a mission yesterday to purchase this device, and on coming home with ingredients for dinner, proceeded to use it to chop up onions, garlic, habaneros, and something else for some burgers. So far, I am a big fan of this machine. Thanks, Brian Boitano!

NYC was fun, as always. Pictures of Citi Field, Downtown, and yes, the pig, can be found over nyeah.

I figure this will take care of both.



Behold! The 1979 Chevrolet Malibu Classic Station Wagon. Witness! The extensive list of [non]options!
- No a/c!
- Rear windows that did not open! Well, the small triangle window you see there by the C-pillar swung out, what do you think Chevy doesn't care?
- Roof rack!
- Yella paint job!
- Small child with broom included at no extra cost!
- Brown plastic/vinyl/that-stuff-you-stick-to interior!
- am/fm radio sans tape deck (no, there was no 8-tack in it)!

In truth, I liked that car. and looking at it, it's got some nice touches, like chrome on the bumpers, molding, and door handles. It was the first car I ever knew, being born less than a year prior to its purchase.

I started scanning some pictures of cars in my family through the years. Not too much up yet, but the set is over at my Flickr. I swore I had a picture of my '89 Jimmy on my computer, but I don't. Other than that, all my cars are up, as well as some of my father's. Maybe the next time my mother raids her boxes and boxes of photos, I'll inherit some more.

And for those of you dying for the conclusion of the music post, after much deliberation and brow-furrowing I believe Blind Melon's "No Rain" to be just about the 90siest song ever. It hits all the high points:
- One-hit wonder
- Band with problematic singer (big in the 90s)
- Cross-radio-station appeal, and a big last point,
- A very memorable, MTV-ready video

Ta-da.

...for the two or three of you that come around.

So I was reading an article over at Cracked.com regarding the more obscure places some bands' names have come from. In the bit about Dexys Midnight Runners, the author described their song "Come On Eileen" as "just about the 80siest song imaginable."

So that got me thinking...what, would you say, is just about the 90siest song imaginable? And no, I don't think it was "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Speaking of the 90s, I heard a new song on the radio today by Third Eye Blind. It sounded...well, it sounded like a 3EB song, but if someone got a hold of the boards and decided to speed up the music tracks juuusst that much and the singer is trying to keep up. Other than that, spot on. Geez, between this and what's been on RAW recently, are we due for a 90s renaissance like we had with the 80s over the last few years?

God I hope not. I don't want to see what the hipster ironic fashion houses will crank out for 90s ironica.

And they say, No job for me yet. Apparently even though they feel, based on my salary requirements, that the position is "too entry level" for me, I don't have enough benefit experience to merit hiring me. Classic HR circlespeak. Apparently they missed the part where I all but told them I'd take a pay cut to get my foot in the door of the industry. And I missed the part where they took back the thing about benefits experience not being a pre-req. Oh well. Back to the drawing board for me, then.

At least we're going out for a fancy Restaurant Week dinner tonight.

I realized after receiving an email on the subject that I had not followed through on my promise to let everyone know on Thursday how my first interview went. When I left the place, I thought I had blown it. First, I kind of got thrown for a small loop when the interview questions weren't the standard, "Tell us about a co-worker you didn't get along with and how you handled it," or "Tell us about a time where your quick thinking saved the day." I thought I may have come off as a little too earnest to work there (truth be told, I'm very earnest to work there; a Best Place To Work winner and a small company is like the perfect storm of where I'd be happy), but on going over my responses with bunnyroo at lunch it sounded like I wasn't the wide-eyed fanboy I thought I'd been. So that's good. I'm hoping for an offer, but if it doesn't come, then I can take this as experience and use it on the next interview.

Few more articles up, for those interested. Should you like, you can read about a recent trip to The Publick House over at TBS, or see what I had to say about this past Tuesday's Hell's Kitchen over at Just Eyeball It.

Today feels like such a driving day, but I have nowhere to go. Does anyone have any errands to run that are say, fifty, sixty miles away? And need a chauffeur? :)

Feel free to ignore the last 45 seconds of the below clip, but this perfectly sums up how I feel this morning, having just got off the phone with a company regarding an interview.



We'll rejoin this saga Thursday evening, with the results.

YAY!!

RAIN!!

So this week started off pretty good. We got back from NY around 7p on Friday, and I wound up with a free meal from a national pizza chain due to them missing my online order (apparently it came in on the terminal by the register, but not the one back where they make the pizza. O well). And the fact that A doesn't really prefer this chain means three days of leftovers for me!

I also returned from my parents' house with some books that have been sitting in that house since I was a kid. They're the kind of books that I'm sure everyone had in their house growing up--ones you just looked at the spines of that no one ever seemed to read. Just me? Hmm, ok. I came back with mid-seventies printings of The Comic-Book Book, 2001, The Beer Book (written by a friend of my father's), and The World Encyclopedia of Comics. Also grabbed The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, printed in 1980. I'm pretty excited to finally get to read them. Not like I couldn't have when I was a kid; for some reason I just didn't.

I also grabbed some more records from the cabinet in the basement. Selections this time consisted of a record I won as part of a prize from a national riddle contest in 3rd grade, a 3-record pack of Beethoven's 5th through 7th symphonies, and my original copy of Thriller. Oh yes. Vinyl Thriller up in here. Maybe next time I'm home I'll grab my old Sha Na Na records, if they're still there.

Got some more app's out today, so now I don't have to rush around at the end of the week. Which is good, b/c TDL will be making his way back to Boston again this weekend. Very much looking forward to tearing shit up this weekend.

So far, this week's been pretty good. I've needed that.

Should anyone wish to visit Florida through my Canon PowerShot's lens, there are some photos up of our recent 4th of July vacation over on der Flickr site.

Oh, and a few pictures of the multiple personalities of Tubs, because YOU (well, someone; could've been you, though) demanded it!

Fought all day with my compy re: getting my wireless printer connected again, before realizing I had to roll back the driver for the wireless card. Fun. Once I'm re-employed, I think I'm just going to do a build for my next compy.

I'll throw this behind a cut in case people don't feel like reading about me sleeping.

( So, this dream I had. )

Quick hits:
In first-time news, I'm on my way to Fenway this Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY, for the first time since I've moved here. My brother is in town for a wedding this weekend, and we get to hang out Sunday before he goes back to WA on a Monday morning redeye.

New articles up by Those Beer Snobs. Anything you want to see up there? Lemme know! It's like a 21st birthday bar crawl, I'll drink what you say and buy it myself. You can't lose!

I want some dinner and beers tonight. Hmm.

Well, after waking up at 4 this morning for a 7a flight, waiting in the Ft Lauderdale airport for an extra 2 hours b/c my in-laws' flight out of NY was delayed, and checking in to the hotel, we have finally arrived in sunny Florida for our 5-day relaxing vacation. I'm looking forward to seeing what the local supermarkets have in the way of "not-budweiser," if anything. To paraphrase Lewis Black, "There's not enough [beer] for this [weekend]." The hotel is nice; right now the lawn guys are here cropping and mowing everything in advance of the holiday weekend. I forgot that freshly-mowed southern lawn smells different than freshly-mowed northern lawn.

The last time I was in Florida was three years ago. The time before that was in the later '90s somewhere. Due to having former family living down here when I was a kid, my parents, brother, and I would be down here twice a year, every year when I was growing up (and even into middle- and high-school). Even with all that time, the palm trees, wide-bladed thick grass, and the smell of the dense heat still seem so familiar. And even though I'm down here visiting new family, it kind of makes me miss the old family a little more.

...with apologies to Phil Collins.

Coffee ice cream was a resounding success! It's even got little specks of finely ground coffee through it, kind of like the way Breyer's vanilla has the bean specks dotting it, but finer. With some caramel sauce it tastes just like your favorite Turtle coffee drink from that coffee shop near college; you know the one. I am very proud of myself. Blended in a shake form with some hi-octane Kahlua and quality vanilla vodka or rum would be sweet, delicious lethality.

Tonight it's off to see TMBG again. But this time, the internet is rumbling with the rumors that it'll be a Flood show. If that turns out to be true that'd be awesome. In 13 years of seeing them, I've never seen a Flood show. With their reliance on new material for 70% of show set lists these days, it would be nice to see them bust out some classics.

Wow, it's really been a while since I've posted something. Yeesh. But then, there's not too much I've done. If I've seemed anti-social, I apologize. Not much to report on. Still need to see Trek; I think I need to get out of the house more in general. If I was sitting in a cube for 8 hours a day at this point, I'd most likely be lamenting the fact that I couldn't get out and do something. It seems that not being tethered to the cube has itself become an even heavier weight. That doesn't seem right.

Anyway, few points of note. There's a few new articles up on Those Beer Snobs. And tonight is my first time experimenting with making ice cream. Since Brooklyn Chocolate Stout is out of season at the moment, my inaugural batch is of the NA variety. If this is a success, the next experiment will involve a different beer's flavorings. I'm excited!

I'm also toying with the idea of starting an actual (non-LJ) blog. We'll see.