last night, karen and i hung out with my friends (marc and kelley).
marc and kelley were gracious enough to make dinner for the night. on the menu: tacos... and some other mexican related side dishes. usually whenever marc and kelley make tacos, i throw everything into the taco shell... including the related side dishes. i don't really know why i do it. seeing as how i'm already eating the taco by hand, i suppose it just makes things easier to consume.
anyway, last night i actually tried something new: a tamale. now, i have never eaten a tamale. in fact, i didn't even know what a tamale was up until yesterday. don't get me wrong, i've eaten a hot tamale... but that was just candy. (and for anyone curious, a hot tamale candy and a regular tamale... do not taste the same.) i never really made the connection that a tamale... is well... food and not candy.
needless to say, for those like me who have never eaten a tamale, according my friend wikipedia:
"A tamale (Spanish tamal, from Nahuatl tamalli) is a traditional Latin American dish consisting of steam-cooked corn dough (masa) with or without a filling. Tamales can be filled with meats, cheese (post-colonial), and sliced chillis or any preparation according to taste. The tamale is generally wrapped in a corn husk or plantain(post-colonial) leaves before cooking, depending on the region from which they come.
Their essence is the corn meal dough made from hominy (called masa), or a masa mix such as Maseca, usually filled with sweet or savory filling, wrapped in plant leaves or corn husks, and cooked, usually by steaming, until firm. Tamales were developed as a portable ration for use by war parties in the ancient Americas, and were as ubiquitous and varied as the sandwich is today. The diversity of native languages in the pre-Hispanic America led to a number of local words for the tamal, many of which remain in use."
regardless, the tamale was good. (the peanut butter and jelly bars for dessert were also very good too. cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.)
needless to say, with the season of "lost" over, we decided to catch up on some episodes of angel. the episodes we watched included: "i've got you under my skin" about a child possessed by a demon; and "the prodigal" which provides some history about angel's past and his relationship with his father.
as those episodes of angel were the last ones on the disc, we decided to take a quick break and enjoy the show "deadliest warrior". deadliest warrior is a show that examines the weaponry from various people in the past and creates a computer simulation about who would win in a fictitious battle. it's an interesting show that marc and kelley got karen and i hooked on. the combatants in the episode for the night: william wallace versus shaka zulu.
the show almost reminds me of those discussions growing up like who would win in a fight: batman versus superman and things like that... except deadliest warrior actually does some scientific research. (for anyone curious, william wallace would win... freeeeeeeedommmmm! that was a reference to the mel gibson "braveheart" movie... back before mel gibson became drunk and started calling women sugar-tits...)
anyway, to add some frivolity to the mix, we ended the night watching the show "wipeout". now, i suck at wipeout. wipeout is basically mxc (most extreme elimination challenge)... only better.
(the video below is from wipeout.)
the premise of the show: make it through a bunch of obstacle courses and the winner at the end gets $50,000.
i never really watched the show in its entirety up until yesterday. last night, however, had all of us laughing in stitches. i can see now why my mom loves the show so much. when the show first aired, my mom kept telling me how funny the show was. who knew? mother knows best...
anyway, wipeout was definitely a good way to end the night. as usual, i had a blast last night.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
I Suck At The Wrentham Premium Outlets
monday was memorial day. happy memorial day!
earlier in the week, my bff (kerry) had contacted karen and i to see if we were available during the long weekend. kerry was interested in going to the wrentham premium outlets to do some clothes shopping. now, i suck at the wrentham premium outlets. i definitely have not been there in quite some time. in fact, the last time may have been with kerry.
anyway, to start off the day we met kerry in braintree at borders. awhile ago, i had received a gift card for christmas from my former boss to borders. as i'm generally illiterate, i don't feel the need to buy many books. (i apparently read buffy comic books and stupid twilight books.) so, i was looking to use up the rest of my gift card.
recently, karen and i have been talking about creating a vegetable garden. as well, we have discussed the possibility of creating a compost pile. so naturally, we decided to look for books about vegetable gardens.
it's interesting. i never would have thought in a million years that i would be interested in gardening. i considered gardening like yard work... dirty and an utter pain. it was not until i could see the benefits of gardening and growing your own foods free of pesticides and whatnot that i became a little intrigued by the idea. i guess we'll see how long my curiosity lasts.
anyway, after getting a book about vegetable gardens (and finally getting rid of my borders gift card), karen, kerry and i head off for some retail therapy: shopping. interestingly enough, we did not buy that many things at wrentham. i did not buy anything at all, but karen and kerry each got some stuff. nevertheless, it was just fun to hang out and spend some time with kerry.
for anyone curious, it turns out that kerry has become a country bumpkin. she has joined the bandwagon of enjoying country music... evident from the country music cd she created. i wonder if country music correlates with age... in that the older you get, the more you are likely to enjoy country music. i now know a bunch of people who like country music (besides karen): karen's cousin (karlene) and our friends (jen, pam) and now kerry. oh well.
regardless, we had fun at wrentham. we even enjoyed a little lunch at ruby tuesdays in wrentham. all in all, i had fun... even if i did spend most of the time standing around waiting outside the fitting room for karen and kerry.
and as an interesting tidbit of information, i spaced off again while driving home from wrentham... proof that i still may not have recovered from my staying up till the wee hours of night fixing a computer in lowell. and by spacing off... i mean big time... i had absolutely been on mental cruise control and was well past the exit before realizing what i had done.
so naturally, one would think that i would have crashed again and went to bed when i got home. nope. karen and i ended up building a raised bed for our eventual vegetable garden in the back yard... and then i crashed.
earlier in the week, my bff (kerry) had contacted karen and i to see if we were available during the long weekend. kerry was interested in going to the wrentham premium outlets to do some clothes shopping. now, i suck at the wrentham premium outlets. i definitely have not been there in quite some time. in fact, the last time may have been with kerry.
anyway, to start off the day we met kerry in braintree at borders. awhile ago, i had received a gift card for christmas from my former boss to borders. as i'm generally illiterate, i don't feel the need to buy many books. (i apparently read buffy comic books and stupid twilight books.) so, i was looking to use up the rest of my gift card.
recently, karen and i have been talking about creating a vegetable garden. as well, we have discussed the possibility of creating a compost pile. so naturally, we decided to look for books about vegetable gardens.
it's interesting. i never would have thought in a million years that i would be interested in gardening. i considered gardening like yard work... dirty and an utter pain. it was not until i could see the benefits of gardening and growing your own foods free of pesticides and whatnot that i became a little intrigued by the idea. i guess we'll see how long my curiosity lasts.
anyway, after getting a book about vegetable gardens (and finally getting rid of my borders gift card), karen, kerry and i head off for some retail therapy: shopping. interestingly enough, we did not buy that many things at wrentham. i did not buy anything at all, but karen and kerry each got some stuff. nevertheless, it was just fun to hang out and spend some time with kerry.
for anyone curious, it turns out that kerry has become a country bumpkin. she has joined the bandwagon of enjoying country music... evident from the country music cd she created. i wonder if country music correlates with age... in that the older you get, the more you are likely to enjoy country music. i now know a bunch of people who like country music (besides karen): karen's cousin (karlene) and our friends (jen, pam) and now kerry. oh well.
regardless, we had fun at wrentham. we even enjoyed a little lunch at ruby tuesdays in wrentham. all in all, i had fun... even if i did spend most of the time standing around waiting outside the fitting room for karen and kerry.
and as an interesting tidbit of information, i spaced off again while driving home from wrentham... proof that i still may not have recovered from my staying up till the wee hours of night fixing a computer in lowell. and by spacing off... i mean big time... i had absolutely been on mental cruise control and was well past the exit before realizing what i had done.
so naturally, one would think that i would have crashed again and went to bed when i got home. nope. karen and i ended up building a raised bed for our eventual vegetable garden in the back yard... and then i crashed.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
I Suck At Celebrating My Wedding Anniversary
sunday was my wedding anniversary. it was six years ago that i duped karen into thinking i was a wonderful guy worth spending the rest of her life with. little did she know...
anyway, what better way to start off our wedding anniversary than breakfast in lowell? supposedly, there is a lot to like about lowell... or so karen's cousins would have you believe. sure, i suck at celebrating my wedding anniversary.
karen and i spent the night at her cousins (karlene and tommy) who live in lowell. after all, we definitely were not going to head home after staying up till the wee hours (4am) the previous night. (as it was, i had some trouble driving home later that day... not that i was driving badly or anything. i had simply spaced off and missed our exit.)
nevertheless, the four of us got up bright and early for breakfast at vic's located in lowell. vic's is one of those places that remind me of the old school diner... probably because there is a row of seats at the counter.
anyway, the food was good. karen had cran-orange french toast, while i had blueberry pancakes. to my surprise, the blueberry pancakes were huge. karlene actually had an interesting breakfast as well. she ordered an almond joy pancake. i think it's a pancake with chocolate and coconut... interesting.
the blueberry pancakes at vic's were definitely filling. compared to the annual tradition last year, where i had ordered blueberry pancakes at this breakfast restaurant in lowell called "the owl", these pancakes were much better. of course, it was not too difficult to taste better than the blueberry pancakes i ordered last year because the blueberries were actually in the pancake this time around. (last year, i ordered blueberry pancakes... only to get regular pancakes with blueberries on the side.)
after breakfast, karen and i headed back home... where, as mentioned before, i missed our exit due to my lackadaisical state. once we got home, the first thing we did: assemble our dyson vacuum and take it for a test run. needless to say, we were giddy with excitement. heck, i still get giddy whenever i see the vacuum. (yes, we may be a little odd, but it's an awesome vacuum!)
shortly thereafter, we both crashed from exhaustion. when we finally did wake up, karen and i opened our presents to one another: candy galore. right now, our house is packed full of candy. yum! gummy bears... bouncing here and there and everywhere!
anyway, to celebrate our anniversary we decided to go to salsa's in hingham. salsa's was pretty empty when we arrived. interestingly enough, the paw sox were on television there. i didn't even know minor league baseball was even broadcasted. as usual, the food at salsa's was delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.)
the delicious food was a great way to end the night. i still can't believe it has already been six years. it's interesting how quickly time goes by.
anyway, what better way to start off our wedding anniversary than breakfast in lowell? supposedly, there is a lot to like about lowell... or so karen's cousins would have you believe. sure, i suck at celebrating my wedding anniversary.
karen and i spent the night at her cousins (karlene and tommy) who live in lowell. after all, we definitely were not going to head home after staying up till the wee hours (4am) the previous night. (as it was, i had some trouble driving home later that day... not that i was driving badly or anything. i had simply spaced off and missed our exit.)
nevertheless, the four of us got up bright and early for breakfast at vic's located in lowell. vic's is one of those places that remind me of the old school diner... probably because there is a row of seats at the counter.
anyway, the food was good. karen had cran-orange french toast, while i had blueberry pancakes. to my surprise, the blueberry pancakes were huge. karlene actually had an interesting breakfast as well. she ordered an almond joy pancake. i think it's a pancake with chocolate and coconut... interesting.
the blueberry pancakes at vic's were definitely filling. compared to the annual tradition last year, where i had ordered blueberry pancakes at this breakfast restaurant in lowell called "the owl", these pancakes were much better. of course, it was not too difficult to taste better than the blueberry pancakes i ordered last year because the blueberries were actually in the pancake this time around. (last year, i ordered blueberry pancakes... only to get regular pancakes with blueberries on the side.)
after breakfast, karen and i headed back home... where, as mentioned before, i missed our exit due to my lackadaisical state. once we got home, the first thing we did: assemble our dyson vacuum and take it for a test run. needless to say, we were giddy with excitement. heck, i still get giddy whenever i see the vacuum. (yes, we may be a little odd, but it's an awesome vacuum!)
shortly thereafter, we both crashed from exhaustion. when we finally did wake up, karen and i opened our presents to one another: candy galore. right now, our house is packed full of candy. yum! gummy bears... bouncing here and there and everywhere!
anyway, to celebrate our anniversary we decided to go to salsa's in hingham. salsa's was pretty empty when we arrived. interestingly enough, the paw sox were on television there. i didn't even know minor league baseball was even broadcasted. as usual, the food at salsa's was delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.)
the delicious food was a great way to end the night. i still can't believe it has already been six years. it's interesting how quickly time goes by.
I Suck At Hanging Out With Karlene And Tommy
saturday was quite the eventful day.
the day started off bright and early as my brother-in-law's (pj) brother (michael) stopped by for a quick visit. awhile ago, karen and i were talking to michael about air conditioning. in particular, we were asking if michael and his family would be interested in taking our old central air unit.
when the second floor was added to our house, karen and i asked the contractors to see if they could integrate the new duct work with our exisiting central air unit on the first floor. unfortunately, to have an efficient system the answer was no. thus, karen and i had a new central air unit installed to control both floors of the house.
as a result, the old original central air unit has been sitting in the garage ever since the second floor was added. and truth be told, the original central air unit was not even that old. it might have only been used one year. money well spent...
needless to say, karen and i were ecstatic when michael said he could use it. we were happy because 1) we did not have to throw a perfectly good central air unit away, which as fans of recycling were music to our ears; and 2) we have more room in the garage again.
anyway, michael and pj came bright and early to pick up the central air unit. (michael lives in the neighboring town of pembroke, so the transporting of the central air unit was not that far.) to our surprise, michael brought us blueberry bushes in return. it was a very nice gesture that he did not have to do.
following the central air unit pickup, karen and i went to get our big merchandise ticket for the day: a vacuum. for awhile, karen and i have been talking about getting a new vacuum. our old vacuum... aside from putting out a lot of heat... has not been picking up dirt that well.
i am guessing one of the reasons why the vacuum has not been picking up dirt that well is because the filter needs to be changed. every year around memorial day, karen and i would order a new filter for the vacuum. unfortunately, for the past few years, we have neglected to get a new filter. (that is how long we have talked about getting a new vacuum.)
the new filters were rather costly for the vacuum. in doing the math, we figured that it made no sense to continually purchase new filters because eventually the costs accrued for the filters would exceed purchasing a new vacuum altogether. hence, we had stopped buying filters for our old vacuum.
unfortunately, we kept talking about getting a new vacumm and never did... for years. we had even researched and looked into a specific vacuum. so one day, as i was browsing through the weekly ad for best buy, i noticed that the vacuum that we had looked into was on sale.
and thus, karen and i decided that enough was enough... and we made the executive decision to just purchase the new vacuum... before it would be another few years. anyway, we bought the new vacuum. it's a dyson. (for anyone curious, we love the vacuum. it's awesome!)
anyway, following our excursion to best buy, karen and i headed to lowell. (insert "there is a lot to like about lowell" tagline.) karen's cousins (karlene and tommy) live in lowell. i am not exactly sure how the "tradition" started... and karlene is big on traditions... but for some reason karen and i apparently head up to lowell on memorial day weekend. and this year was no different.
now, i suck at hanging out with karlene and tommy. the tradition generally includes visiting a garden store known as gath's and kimball's ice cream. in addition, this year's festivities would include the cleaning of karlene's craft room, and the fixing of their computer.
(pictured below is the sign for the garden store... and wally.)
as far as garden places go, gath's is great. the place is run by the gaths out of their home in dunstable. mr. gath is very helpful... and funny. he does a great job with his plants. karen... and apparently karlene... enjoy going to gath's to find plants for their respective gardens. (karen and i also picked up some things for the cemetery for our son.)
after gath's, we enjoyed kimball's ice cream in westford. as far as ice cream goes... kimball's is by far the best. for anyone curious, kimball's is another family run business. their home-made ice cream is simply delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) with their gigantic portion sizes, i would recommend kimball's ice cream to any ice cream connoisseur.
from there, karen, karlene, tommy and i went back to their place in lowell for a little cookout dinner. (yes, we had ice cream before dinner.) and then... the fun started.
karlene is a little sentimental. she keeps practically everything that is given to her. in addition, she purchases things to hold on to for future use. as admirable as those qualities may be, the result is a room full of stuff... lots and lots of stuff. as of late, karlene has been trying to de-clutter her craft room. i would guess that her wanting to de-clutter her room is somewhat related to the recent cleaning of her grandmother's place.
nevertheless, karlene asked for karen's help. and as weird as this sounds, karen loves helping to organize things... especially other people's things. so while karen and karlene tackled karlene's craft room, i got the enviable task of fixing their computer.
naturally, i get the computer-related task. that is my "thing" in the family... perhaps due to my genetics. just kidding. for some time, karlene and tommy's computer has been unable to read data from the disc drive. in fact, the disc drive does not even show up as an accessible drive.
before i started of course, tommy and i reviewed some of the applications on the computer. after my little schpiel about microsoft's internet explorer browser, i convinced tommy to forego internet explorer and use mozilla's web standard-compliant firefox browser. (go firefox!)
browsers aside, it took me awhile to diagnose the problem of the inaccessible disc drive. at first, i thought the problem was due to the installed driver for the piece of hardware. sadly, i was mistaken. after some tinkering... and a brief moment where i had rendered the computer completely inoperable... tommy and i discovered the problem: an older version of itunes.
truth be told, i never would have guessed there was a connection between itunes and an inaccessible disc drive. my guess is that because itunes has a disc burning feature, that somehow the older version of the application caused the disc drive to be inoperable. nevertheless, the easy solution turned out to be updating itunes to the current version offered by apple. once itunes was updated, the disc drive appeared. unfortunately, we did not discover this possible solution until the wee hours of night... and by wee hours... i mean 4 in the morning.
the day started off bright and early as my brother-in-law's (pj) brother (michael) stopped by for a quick visit. awhile ago, karen and i were talking to michael about air conditioning. in particular, we were asking if michael and his family would be interested in taking our old central air unit.
when the second floor was added to our house, karen and i asked the contractors to see if they could integrate the new duct work with our exisiting central air unit on the first floor. unfortunately, to have an efficient system the answer was no. thus, karen and i had a new central air unit installed to control both floors of the house.
as a result, the old original central air unit has been sitting in the garage ever since the second floor was added. and truth be told, the original central air unit was not even that old. it might have only been used one year. money well spent...
needless to say, karen and i were ecstatic when michael said he could use it. we were happy because 1) we did not have to throw a perfectly good central air unit away, which as fans of recycling were music to our ears; and 2) we have more room in the garage again.
anyway, michael and pj came bright and early to pick up the central air unit. (michael lives in the neighboring town of pembroke, so the transporting of the central air unit was not that far.) to our surprise, michael brought us blueberry bushes in return. it was a very nice gesture that he did not have to do.
following the central air unit pickup, karen and i went to get our big merchandise ticket for the day: a vacuum. for awhile, karen and i have been talking about getting a new vacuum. our old vacuum... aside from putting out a lot of heat... has not been picking up dirt that well.
i am guessing one of the reasons why the vacuum has not been picking up dirt that well is because the filter needs to be changed. every year around memorial day, karen and i would order a new filter for the vacuum. unfortunately, for the past few years, we have neglected to get a new filter. (that is how long we have talked about getting a new vacuum.)
the new filters were rather costly for the vacuum. in doing the math, we figured that it made no sense to continually purchase new filters because eventually the costs accrued for the filters would exceed purchasing a new vacuum altogether. hence, we had stopped buying filters for our old vacuum.
unfortunately, we kept talking about getting a new vacumm and never did... for years. we had even researched and looked into a specific vacuum. so one day, as i was browsing through the weekly ad for best buy, i noticed that the vacuum that we had looked into was on sale.
and thus, karen and i decided that enough was enough... and we made the executive decision to just purchase the new vacuum... before it would be another few years. anyway, we bought the new vacuum. it's a dyson. (for anyone curious, we love the vacuum. it's awesome!)
anyway, following our excursion to best buy, karen and i headed to lowell. (insert "there is a lot to like about lowell" tagline.) karen's cousins (karlene and tommy) live in lowell. i am not exactly sure how the "tradition" started... and karlene is big on traditions... but for some reason karen and i apparently head up to lowell on memorial day weekend. and this year was no different.
now, i suck at hanging out with karlene and tommy. the tradition generally includes visiting a garden store known as gath's and kimball's ice cream. in addition, this year's festivities would include the cleaning of karlene's craft room, and the fixing of their computer.
(pictured below is the sign for the garden store... and wally.)
as far as garden places go, gath's is great. the place is run by the gaths out of their home in dunstable. mr. gath is very helpful... and funny. he does a great job with his plants. karen... and apparently karlene... enjoy going to gath's to find plants for their respective gardens. (karen and i also picked up some things for the cemetery for our son.)
after gath's, we enjoyed kimball's ice cream in westford. as far as ice cream goes... kimball's is by far the best. for anyone curious, kimball's is another family run business. their home-made ice cream is simply delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) with their gigantic portion sizes, i would recommend kimball's ice cream to any ice cream connoisseur.
from there, karen, karlene, tommy and i went back to their place in lowell for a little cookout dinner. (yes, we had ice cream before dinner.) and then... the fun started.
karlene is a little sentimental. she keeps practically everything that is given to her. in addition, she purchases things to hold on to for future use. as admirable as those qualities may be, the result is a room full of stuff... lots and lots of stuff. as of late, karlene has been trying to de-clutter her craft room. i would guess that her wanting to de-clutter her room is somewhat related to the recent cleaning of her grandmother's place.
nevertheless, karlene asked for karen's help. and as weird as this sounds, karen loves helping to organize things... especially other people's things. so while karen and karlene tackled karlene's craft room, i got the enviable task of fixing their computer.
naturally, i get the computer-related task. that is my "thing" in the family... perhaps due to my genetics. just kidding. for some time, karlene and tommy's computer has been unable to read data from the disc drive. in fact, the disc drive does not even show up as an accessible drive.
before i started of course, tommy and i reviewed some of the applications on the computer. after my little schpiel about microsoft's internet explorer browser, i convinced tommy to forego internet explorer and use mozilla's web standard-compliant firefox browser. (go firefox!)
browsers aside, it took me awhile to diagnose the problem of the inaccessible disc drive. at first, i thought the problem was due to the installed driver for the piece of hardware. sadly, i was mistaken. after some tinkering... and a brief moment where i had rendered the computer completely inoperable... tommy and i discovered the problem: an older version of itunes.
truth be told, i never would have guessed there was a connection between itunes and an inaccessible disc drive. my guess is that because itunes has a disc burning feature, that somehow the older version of the application caused the disc drive to be inoperable. nevertheless, the easy solution turned out to be updating itunes to the current version offered by apple. once itunes was updated, the disc drive appeared. unfortunately, we did not discover this possible solution until the wee hours of night... and by wee hours... i mean 4 in the morning.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
I Suck At Trivia Night
last night, karen and i hung out with my friends (marc and kelley). with the season of "lost" over, we decided to do something a little bit different yesterday. we decided to try our hand at trivia night. now, i suck at trivia night. unfortunately last night, everyone else sucked too.
every wednesday, a company called stump! trivia has a team trivia contest at my friend's (garv) bar: blue 22 in quincy. marc and kelley were gracious enough to organize our team for the night. the team consisted of marc, kelley, karen, myself, and our friends (andrea, jen, and hot amy). the latter two, however, were simply there for the dinner portion of the night... not so much for the trivia.
speaking of dinner, i actually had to forego most of the eating last night. my company had a departmental barbeque earlier in the day. needless to say, i may have overeaten a little during that cookout. i practically ate a cow... if not a cow, then maybe a calf. the steak tips were just that good. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) and sure, i'm probably paying for the mass consumption of beef now... but it sure did taste good.
anyway, our team did not really do too well. the good news was... we weren't last. the bad news... we only beat the teams that had quit for the night. sadly, the only question i was able to really help with had to do with the song "what hurts the most". the question was something along the lines of: what grammy-nominated country song in 2003 was remade by cascada?
by no means am i a country music fan. sure, there are some country tunes that i enjoy because the songs are quite catchy. the reason i knew the answer, however, was because i happen to own two of cascada's albums... and "what hurts the most" happens to be on one of those albums. (i'm technically asian... so i have to enjoy techno dance music, right?)
(the video below is cascada's version of "what hurts the most".)
that was about the highlight of my trivia night. in our defense, we have not done trivia in quite some time. andrea was relatively new to trivia as it was only her second time ever. as for the rest of us, we just needed to dust off the cobwebs.
despite our poor performance, i had a great time. should we attempt to do trivia again (and i have a funny suspicion that we will because andrea is quite competitive), we should perhaps start brushing up on the fairly common topics of tv, movies, and music.
all in all, i did have a good time. it was good to see everyone and hang out.
every wednesday, a company called stump! trivia has a team trivia contest at my friend's (garv) bar: blue 22 in quincy. marc and kelley were gracious enough to organize our team for the night. the team consisted of marc, kelley, karen, myself, and our friends (andrea, jen, and hot amy). the latter two, however, were simply there for the dinner portion of the night... not so much for the trivia.
speaking of dinner, i actually had to forego most of the eating last night. my company had a departmental barbeque earlier in the day. needless to say, i may have overeaten a little during that cookout. i practically ate a cow... if not a cow, then maybe a calf. the steak tips were just that good. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) and sure, i'm probably paying for the mass consumption of beef now... but it sure did taste good.
anyway, our team did not really do too well. the good news was... we weren't last. the bad news... we only beat the teams that had quit for the night. sadly, the only question i was able to really help with had to do with the song "what hurts the most". the question was something along the lines of: what grammy-nominated country song in 2003 was remade by cascada?
by no means am i a country music fan. sure, there are some country tunes that i enjoy because the songs are quite catchy. the reason i knew the answer, however, was because i happen to own two of cascada's albums... and "what hurts the most" happens to be on one of those albums. (i'm technically asian... so i have to enjoy techno dance music, right?)
(the video below is cascada's version of "what hurts the most".)
that was about the highlight of my trivia night. in our defense, we have not done trivia in quite some time. andrea was relatively new to trivia as it was only her second time ever. as for the rest of us, we just needed to dust off the cobwebs.
despite our poor performance, i had a great time. should we attempt to do trivia again (and i have a funny suspicion that we will because andrea is quite competitive), we should perhaps start brushing up on the fairly common topics of tv, movies, and music.
all in all, i did have a good time. it was good to see everyone and hang out.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
I Suck At Glee
since getting verizon fios for our ginormous television, karen and i have been pretty much couch potatoes. we have a system... and by system i mean that i pretty much grab my lucky ralph lauren down comforter and watch television... all snuggled up. (security blanket? maybe.)
anyway, last night we decided to watch the premiere of fox's new show: glee. now, i suck at glee. at first, karen was not too keen on the idea of the show. truth be told, the beginning of the show was not too interesting.
nevertheless, i am a sucker for all things teeny-bopper-ish and high school-ish. i have, after all, gotten some ribbing for owning the collector's edition dvd of "bring it on". (for anyone curious, "bring it on" is the high school cheerleading movie with buffy's own... and massachusett's own... eliza dushku. and sure, kirsten dunst was in it too.)
(the video below is a promo for glee.)
anyway, the show "glee" turned out to be rather good. karen and i were hooked by the end of the show. of course, it didn't hurt that the glee club performed journey's "don't stop believing"... once the staple of all bars. (i don't think any woman can resist belting out the lyrics when the song comes on in the wee hours of night at a bar.)
that is not to say the show was original or anything. the show has its usual plot devices: popular football jock turned glee club member; girl likes boy; female teacher likes glee teacher; teen angst; underdog glee club members, etc. luckily for fox and "glee", i'm a sucker for movies and television. sure, the show will probably be very predictable, but karen and i can't wait now for the "glee" season to begin. too bad the show does not start until the fall.
needless to say, as i was singing "don't stop believing" myself... i started to wonder if we had a glee club growing up in high school... not that i would have joined it of course. it wasn't until karen reminded me that glee was called choir, that i remembered. and once i remembered that fact... then i definitely would not have joined. choir (at least my high school choir) = lame. just kidding.
anyway, karen and i enjoyed watching "glee" last night... cuddled up in the down comforter on our couch. it was a good way to unwind and veg out.
anyway, last night we decided to watch the premiere of fox's new show: glee. now, i suck at glee. at first, karen was not too keen on the idea of the show. truth be told, the beginning of the show was not too interesting.
nevertheless, i am a sucker for all things teeny-bopper-ish and high school-ish. i have, after all, gotten some ribbing for owning the collector's edition dvd of "bring it on". (for anyone curious, "bring it on" is the high school cheerleading movie with buffy's own... and massachusett's own... eliza dushku. and sure, kirsten dunst was in it too.)
(the video below is a promo for glee.)
anyway, the show "glee" turned out to be rather good. karen and i were hooked by the end of the show. of course, it didn't hurt that the glee club performed journey's "don't stop believing"... once the staple of all bars. (i don't think any woman can resist belting out the lyrics when the song comes on in the wee hours of night at a bar.)
that is not to say the show was original or anything. the show has its usual plot devices: popular football jock turned glee club member; girl likes boy; female teacher likes glee teacher; teen angst; underdog glee club members, etc. luckily for fox and "glee", i'm a sucker for movies and television. sure, the show will probably be very predictable, but karen and i can't wait now for the "glee" season to begin. too bad the show does not start until the fall.
needless to say, as i was singing "don't stop believing" myself... i started to wonder if we had a glee club growing up in high school... not that i would have joined it of course. it wasn't until karen reminded me that glee was called choir, that i remembered. and once i remembered that fact... then i definitely would not have joined. choir (at least my high school choir) = lame. just kidding.
anyway, karen and i enjoyed watching "glee" last night... cuddled up in the down comforter on our couch. it was a good way to unwind and veg out.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I Suck At Staples
last night, i went looking for an anniversary present. after all, this sunday is karen and my wedding anniversary. even though it was six years ago, it seems like yesterday that i duped karen into marrying me.
with the exception of last year, karen and i generally exchange gifts based on the traditional theme for the given anniversary year. for example, the traditional gift for the first anniversary is paper. consequently, i got her a gift certificate to a salon, etc.
anyway, the traditional gift for the sixth anniversary is candy/iron. now, as much as i enjoy ferrous ions (iron), i opted for the candy option. after all, karen loves candy. heck, who doesn't love candy and all its sugary goodness?
needless to say, i rather enjoyed finding a present for karen this year. so last night, i went shopping for candy! yum! with the help of my friend (andrea), i was able to buy candy in bulk last night. andrea has a bj's card. previously, i had inquired if andrea would be using her card this week at bj's. as she wasn't, i asked if i could borrow her card with the intention of buying candy... lots and lots of candy. luckily for me, andrea wasn't going to use her card this week at bj's.
i ended up getting karen some of her favorites: a 1.5 lb container of sunkist fruit gems (naturally flavored soft fruit candy) and a box of 72 foil wrapped junior mints (deluxe dark chocolate). oh yes, her tummy will be full of candy come sunday. i'm pretty excited. come to think about it, i probably should have gotten some candy for our little vacation to the cape in july too. oh well, i'll worry about that later on.
anyway, following bj's, i made a little pit stop to staples. for anyone curious, the two stores are pretty close to one another in weymouth. now i suck at staples. (i had originally thought about titling this post "i suck at bj's"... but that just sounded all nasty and wrong.) nevertheless, i don't shop at staples that often. i generally go there to buy blank cds or whatnot.
some time ago on one of my random visits, i joined the staples reward club. for the longest time, i had no idea what the reward club offered. then one day, i inquired about the reward club and was told that one of the rewards involved getting a credit for old ink/toner cartridges.
naturally, i thought that was a great idea because i am a big proponent of recycling things... such as old ink/toner cartridges. the problem: i currently don't have a printer so there is no need for me to recycle old ink/toner cartridges.
luckily, karen told me about how her company lately has had problems recycling their old ink/toner cartridges because they were not receiving the proper materials to ship the old cartridges back to their vendors for recycling. so, karen asked if i would be interested in recycling the cartridges at staples seeing as how i had the reward club card. (for anyone curious, i would be more than happy to help anyone recycle their old ink/toner cartridges.)
thus, last night i brought three ink/toner cartridges from karen's work to staples for recycling after the excursion to bj's. for someone like me who occasionally goes to staples, it made the visit last night worthwhile. as lame as this sounds, i actually felt happy that i was a staples reward club member.
with the exception of last year, karen and i generally exchange gifts based on the traditional theme for the given anniversary year. for example, the traditional gift for the first anniversary is paper. consequently, i got her a gift certificate to a salon, etc.
anyway, the traditional gift for the sixth anniversary is candy/iron. now, as much as i enjoy ferrous ions (iron), i opted for the candy option. after all, karen loves candy. heck, who doesn't love candy and all its sugary goodness?
needless to say, i rather enjoyed finding a present for karen this year. so last night, i went shopping for candy! yum! with the help of my friend (andrea), i was able to buy candy in bulk last night. andrea has a bj's card. previously, i had inquired if andrea would be using her card this week at bj's. as she wasn't, i asked if i could borrow her card with the intention of buying candy... lots and lots of candy. luckily for me, andrea wasn't going to use her card this week at bj's.
i ended up getting karen some of her favorites: a 1.5 lb container of sunkist fruit gems (naturally flavored soft fruit candy) and a box of 72 foil wrapped junior mints (deluxe dark chocolate). oh yes, her tummy will be full of candy come sunday. i'm pretty excited. come to think about it, i probably should have gotten some candy for our little vacation to the cape in july too. oh well, i'll worry about that later on.
anyway, following bj's, i made a little pit stop to staples. for anyone curious, the two stores are pretty close to one another in weymouth. now i suck at staples. (i had originally thought about titling this post "i suck at bj's"... but that just sounded all nasty and wrong.) nevertheless, i don't shop at staples that often. i generally go there to buy blank cds or whatnot.
some time ago on one of my random visits, i joined the staples reward club. for the longest time, i had no idea what the reward club offered. then one day, i inquired about the reward club and was told that one of the rewards involved getting a credit for old ink/toner cartridges.
naturally, i thought that was a great idea because i am a big proponent of recycling things... such as old ink/toner cartridges. the problem: i currently don't have a printer so there is no need for me to recycle old ink/toner cartridges.
luckily, karen told me about how her company lately has had problems recycling their old ink/toner cartridges because they were not receiving the proper materials to ship the old cartridges back to their vendors for recycling. so, karen asked if i would be interested in recycling the cartridges at staples seeing as how i had the reward club card. (for anyone curious, i would be more than happy to help anyone recycle their old ink/toner cartridges.)
thus, last night i brought three ink/toner cartridges from karen's work to staples for recycling after the excursion to bj's. for someone like me who occasionally goes to staples, it made the visit last night worthwhile. as lame as this sounds, i actually felt happy that i was a staples reward club member.
Monday, May 18, 2009
I Suck At Celebrating My Mother-In-Law's Birthday
on sunday, my parents and my in-laws came over for a little celebration. the reason for the celebration: my mother-in-law's birthday. now i suck at celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday. interestingly enough, i had to remind karen about her own mother's birthday. although truth be told, karen has been having a rough past couple of weeks, so it's probably only natural that she forget a few things... like getting her mother a present.
anyway, as is generally the case whenever my parents are around... i get a little stressed. sunday was no different. luckily, i spent most of my mother-in-law's birthday celebration doing things like grilling, cleaning, and playing with my niece (kaleigh) and nephew (pj).
(pictured below is my mother-in-law... with wally.)
for her birthday, my mother-in-law requested grilled chicken. naturally, i fired up the grill to cook the marinaded chicken that karen and i prepared. if the idea of cooking food for everyone wasn't stressful enough, i ran into a slight problem with the grill when the propane tank ran empty. lucky, i averted a possible crisis thanks to my mosquito magnet. (my mosquito magnet uses a propane tank... and thankfully was full of propane.) so with a quick change of propane tanks while the chicken was still cooking, i managed to finish grilling the rest of the chicken.
in addition to the grilled chicken, i prepared the legendary mac 'n cheese for my mother-in-law. for anyone curious, she enjoyed the mac 'n cheese... (let this be a warning to my friend, hot amy... she'll lose the mac 'n cheese challenge...)
my mom was pretty cute on sunday. she spent much of the day playing with kaleigh and pj by chasing them around the house. it's like every time i see my mother now, she has that "want-to-be-grandmother" thing about her. but she seemed to enjoy getting the kids all riled up, much like i do. i told my favorite brother-in-law (pj) that is what my family does... we get his children all excited and riled up... and then leave.
anyway, when all was said and done, the day went pretty well. i think my mother-in-law had a good time and enjoyed the food... which is good because it was her day. happy birthday!
anyway, as is generally the case whenever my parents are around... i get a little stressed. sunday was no different. luckily, i spent most of my mother-in-law's birthday celebration doing things like grilling, cleaning, and playing with my niece (kaleigh) and nephew (pj).
(pictured below is my mother-in-law... with wally.)
for her birthday, my mother-in-law requested grilled chicken. naturally, i fired up the grill to cook the marinaded chicken that karen and i prepared. if the idea of cooking food for everyone wasn't stressful enough, i ran into a slight problem with the grill when the propane tank ran empty. lucky, i averted a possible crisis thanks to my mosquito magnet. (my mosquito magnet uses a propane tank... and thankfully was full of propane.) so with a quick change of propane tanks while the chicken was still cooking, i managed to finish grilling the rest of the chicken.
in addition to the grilled chicken, i prepared the legendary mac 'n cheese for my mother-in-law. for anyone curious, she enjoyed the mac 'n cheese... (let this be a warning to my friend, hot amy... she'll lose the mac 'n cheese challenge...)
my mom was pretty cute on sunday. she spent much of the day playing with kaleigh and pj by chasing them around the house. it's like every time i see my mother now, she has that "want-to-be-grandmother" thing about her. but she seemed to enjoy getting the kids all riled up, much like i do. i told my favorite brother-in-law (pj) that is what my family does... we get his children all excited and riled up... and then leave.
anyway, when all was said and done, the day went pretty well. i think my mother-in-law had a good time and enjoyed the food... which is good because it was her day. happy birthday!
I Suck At Captain Fishbones
saturday night, karen and i met up with our friends (jen and hot amy) for dinner. the restaurant of choice: captain fishbones located in marina bay, quincy. now i suck at captain fishbones. i have not been to that restaurant in quite some time... probably because i don't venture to marina bay that often.
with a name like captain fishbones, you would think that the restaurant specializes in seafood. interestingly enough, of all the people at dinner... i was the only one who actually enjoyed seafood. karen does not mind seafood that much... but everyone else at dinner... not big seafood fans. so in my opinion, it was a strange choice considering i did not even make the plans for dinner. (for anyone curious, hot amy made the plans.)
(pictured below is wally at captain fishbones.)
anyway, one of the reasons for dinner was to hang out with hot amy's boyfriend... who apparently also does not like seafood. i sometimes wonder what her new boyfriend thinks about all of us. after all, the topics of conversation during dinner included things like sex changes and a public access television show.
to clarify, the two topics were not related. the topic of the idiotic mbta driver who crashed the train due to texting came up. apparently, the mbta driver has quincy roots... in that "she" graduated from quincy, but "he" got a job working for the mbta... or so we were told. naturally, that got me thinking... about whether an adam's apple is created when a woman becomes a man. the adam's apple, after all, is generally one of the telltale signs that a man is a man because the projection is more prominent in men. (for anyone curious, if i were a woman becoming a man... i would want the adam's apple.)
as for the public access television show, that topic came up because hot amy... since joining the 21st century and getting cable television... has become a fan of quincy public access television. naturally, that got me thinking about how neat it would be if all of us were to make a public access television show. after all... it's free. (it is public access.) sure, i'm not a resident of quincy... but that's not to say that we could not have fun and simply create a show.
as for what the show could be about... that topic came up as well... sort of by accident. karen had ordered an asparagus salad at captain fishbones, which was quite delicious actually. jen had commented about how one of the pieces of asparagus looked like a green bean. consequently, i thought about fried green beans as seen at places like friday's and asked if there were such a thing as fried asparagus. next thing you know... we started talking about frying everything.
and hence, the idea of "fry it" came about for the public access show. the gist of the show... we try and fry everything... which is somewhat ironic considering karen and hot amy are registered dietitians... but hey, they were on board with the show. plus, if there can be a will it blend website... there can definitely be a "fry it" public access television show.
needless to say, it was an interesting night at captain fishbones. for anyone curious, i had the scrod... (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) the scrod was delicious. and the oreo dessert was also very good too.
with a name like captain fishbones, you would think that the restaurant specializes in seafood. interestingly enough, of all the people at dinner... i was the only one who actually enjoyed seafood. karen does not mind seafood that much... but everyone else at dinner... not big seafood fans. so in my opinion, it was a strange choice considering i did not even make the plans for dinner. (for anyone curious, hot amy made the plans.)
(pictured below is wally at captain fishbones.)
anyway, one of the reasons for dinner was to hang out with hot amy's boyfriend... who apparently also does not like seafood. i sometimes wonder what her new boyfriend thinks about all of us. after all, the topics of conversation during dinner included things like sex changes and a public access television show.
to clarify, the two topics were not related. the topic of the idiotic mbta driver who crashed the train due to texting came up. apparently, the mbta driver has quincy roots... in that "she" graduated from quincy, but "he" got a job working for the mbta... or so we were told. naturally, that got me thinking... about whether an adam's apple is created when a woman becomes a man. the adam's apple, after all, is generally one of the telltale signs that a man is a man because the projection is more prominent in men. (for anyone curious, if i were a woman becoming a man... i would want the adam's apple.)
as for the public access television show, that topic came up because hot amy... since joining the 21st century and getting cable television... has become a fan of quincy public access television. naturally, that got me thinking about how neat it would be if all of us were to make a public access television show. after all... it's free. (it is public access.) sure, i'm not a resident of quincy... but that's not to say that we could not have fun and simply create a show.
as for what the show could be about... that topic came up as well... sort of by accident. karen had ordered an asparagus salad at captain fishbones, which was quite delicious actually. jen had commented about how one of the pieces of asparagus looked like a green bean. consequently, i thought about fried green beans as seen at places like friday's and asked if there were such a thing as fried asparagus. next thing you know... we started talking about frying everything.
and hence, the idea of "fry it" came about for the public access show. the gist of the show... we try and fry everything... which is somewhat ironic considering karen and hot amy are registered dietitians... but hey, they were on board with the show. plus, if there can be a will it blend website... there can definitely be a "fry it" public access television show.
needless to say, it was an interesting night at captain fishbones. for anyone curious, i had the scrod... (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) the scrod was delicious. and the oreo dessert was also very good too.
I Suck At Yard Sales
on saturday, karen and i took part in the ever popular precursor to ebay... the yard sale. now, i suck at yard sales. the idea of the yard sale, however, is quite interesting: get rid of old stuff by selling it. and surprisingly... people will actually buy your old stuff... much like ebay!
my favorite sister-in-law (janine) had organized the yard sale. she had organized a yard sale a couple of years ago... (even though it seems like just a year ago)... nevertheless, it was time to have another yard sale. after all, a lot can accumulate in two years.
needless to say, karen was pretty excited about the yard sale. karen doesn't particularly enjoy clutter too much. my threshhold for clutter is a lot higher than hers... probably because i'm more of a pack rat than she is. anyway, the two of us rummaged through our old things hoping to get rid of them via the yard sale.
(pictured below is wally... being sold.)
unfortunately, karen and i did not sell that many things. we were, however, happy to get rid of what we could. it's strange... but i was quite excited when we sold some of the stuff that has been sitting in our garage for quite some time. i was pumped to get rid of things like binders, picture frames, cologne, board games, jesus, etc. (yes, we sold jesus.) sadly, the orange couch that has been taking up so much room in our garage did not get sold. (thankfully, the orange couch did not follow us home.)
interestingly enough, karen and i barely made more profit than my niece (kaleigh) and nephew (pj). kaleigh and pj were operating a lemonade and brownie stand during the yard sale. pj has a goal to save enough to buy a big wall-e robot. needless to say, they were quite the salespeople...
janine and my favorite brother-in-law (pj) did very well at the yard sale. they sold a ton of things... primarily child related. when all was said and done, we had a great time just hanging out and trying to get rid of things. it was fun.
my favorite sister-in-law (janine) had organized the yard sale. she had organized a yard sale a couple of years ago... (even though it seems like just a year ago)... nevertheless, it was time to have another yard sale. after all, a lot can accumulate in two years.
needless to say, karen was pretty excited about the yard sale. karen doesn't particularly enjoy clutter too much. my threshhold for clutter is a lot higher than hers... probably because i'm more of a pack rat than she is. anyway, the two of us rummaged through our old things hoping to get rid of them via the yard sale.
(pictured below is wally... being sold.)
unfortunately, karen and i did not sell that many things. we were, however, happy to get rid of what we could. it's strange... but i was quite excited when we sold some of the stuff that has been sitting in our garage for quite some time. i was pumped to get rid of things like binders, picture frames, cologne, board games, jesus, etc. (yes, we sold jesus.) sadly, the orange couch that has been taking up so much room in our garage did not get sold. (thankfully, the orange couch did not follow us home.)
interestingly enough, karen and i barely made more profit than my niece (kaleigh) and nephew (pj). kaleigh and pj were operating a lemonade and brownie stand during the yard sale. pj has a goal to save enough to buy a big wall-e robot. needless to say, they were quite the salespeople...
janine and my favorite brother-in-law (pj) did very well at the yard sale. they sold a ton of things... primarily child related. when all was said and done, we had a great time just hanging out and trying to get rid of things. it was fun.
I Suck At Running With Andrea
on friday, i decided to do something i haven't done in a week: go running. the last time i went running was with my friend (andrea). now, i suck at running with andrea.
last week, andrea and i went running while karen finished working her part-time job at the south shore ymca in quincy. the two of us ran for quite some time last week. as a result, andrea mentioned to me about how sore her legs were for the rest of the week. consequently, andrea was quite excited to run with me again on friday while karen worked at the ymca.
unfortunately on friday, we did not get to run as long this time around which is probably a good thing because i had some tightness in my quads... an obvious result of my sitting at a desk all day, i'm sure. anyway karen had finished early at the ymca since her class participants did not show. she had waited over the normal waiting limit before deciding to leave the class.
nevertheless, with karen finishing early with her class, the three of us decided to walk a few laps around the ymca's outdoor track before calling it a day. it was actually a good walk, in part because my legs were still tight. regardless, we discussed some things like our upcoming vacation together.
our vacation is not until july, but we talking about making the necessary preparations and all of that... in terms of food... and driving... and whatnot. for anyone curious, andrea, karen, my bff (kerry) and i rented a house for one week in onset. karen is pretty excited about the vacation... in part because she needs a break from things. so hanging out with her friends for a week is probably a good thing for her.
anyway, despite not really having a running workout on friday, i thought it was a good time.
last week, andrea and i went running while karen finished working her part-time job at the south shore ymca in quincy. the two of us ran for quite some time last week. as a result, andrea mentioned to me about how sore her legs were for the rest of the week. consequently, andrea was quite excited to run with me again on friday while karen worked at the ymca.
unfortunately on friday, we did not get to run as long this time around which is probably a good thing because i had some tightness in my quads... an obvious result of my sitting at a desk all day, i'm sure. anyway karen had finished early at the ymca since her class participants did not show. she had waited over the normal waiting limit before deciding to leave the class.
nevertheless, with karen finishing early with her class, the three of us decided to walk a few laps around the ymca's outdoor track before calling it a day. it was actually a good walk, in part because my legs were still tight. regardless, we discussed some things like our upcoming vacation together.
our vacation is not until july, but we talking about making the necessary preparations and all of that... in terms of food... and driving... and whatnot. for anyone curious, andrea, karen, my bff (kerry) and i rented a house for one week in onset. karen is pretty excited about the vacation... in part because she needs a break from things. so hanging out with her friends for a week is probably a good thing for her.
anyway, despite not really having a running workout on friday, i thought it was a good time.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
I Suck At Lost
yesterday, karen and i hung out with my friends (marc and kelley). for the past couple of months, the four of us have been getting together on thursday nights due to our busy schedules. last night marked our first return back to wednesday nights. the reason for the switch back to wednesday: the season finale of lost.
now, i suck at lost. i still believe lost is the best show on television right now. the writing and plot twists are well done. and last night's season finale was no different. the season finale was amazing... so much so that karen and i kept talking about the show on our way home, which is something we don't normally do. truth be told, i will be sad after next season. the next season of lost is the final season for the show.
to my knowledge, i have only been sad for a series finale twice thus far: once was for the series finale of buffy the vampire slayer; the other was for angel. as much as i enjoyed the show, alias, i was not that sad when that series ended... even though alias was a good show.
nevertheless, i had a great time last night. amidst the lasagna dinner and the peanut butter and jelly bar dessert (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound), we began the night with an episode of buffy. the episode "this year's girl" featured the return of faith, much to the dismay of karen who absolutely dislikes that character on the show.
as that was the last episode on the disc, we then switched over to angel... even though the buffy episode was a two-part episode. the episodes of angel that we watched were "expecting" about cordelia getting impregnated by a demon after a one night stand, and "she" about demon women being slaves.
sad to say, i forgot how terrible the episode "she" was. thankfully, the writers decided not to make the character jhiera a recurring character on the show. jhiera was played by the actress bai ling. for those lost fans, bai ling played the woman on lost who inspired jack's tattoo (the episode "stranger in a strange land" from season 3). that episode from lost was equally awful. it must be the curse of bai ling. every guest appearance she does on a show... makes the episode awful.
anyway, after watching the episodes of buffy and angel... the season finale of lost aired. without revealing too much... the episode was awesome. i'm going to miss the show when the series ends.
now, i suck at lost. i still believe lost is the best show on television right now. the writing and plot twists are well done. and last night's season finale was no different. the season finale was amazing... so much so that karen and i kept talking about the show on our way home, which is something we don't normally do. truth be told, i will be sad after next season. the next season of lost is the final season for the show.
to my knowledge, i have only been sad for a series finale twice thus far: once was for the series finale of buffy the vampire slayer; the other was for angel. as much as i enjoyed the show, alias, i was not that sad when that series ended... even though alias was a good show.
nevertheless, i had a great time last night. amidst the lasagna dinner and the peanut butter and jelly bar dessert (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound), we began the night with an episode of buffy. the episode "this year's girl" featured the return of faith, much to the dismay of karen who absolutely dislikes that character on the show.
as that was the last episode on the disc, we then switched over to angel... even though the buffy episode was a two-part episode. the episodes of angel that we watched were "expecting" about cordelia getting impregnated by a demon after a one night stand, and "she" about demon women being slaves.
sad to say, i forgot how terrible the episode "she" was. thankfully, the writers decided not to make the character jhiera a recurring character on the show. jhiera was played by the actress bai ling. for those lost fans, bai ling played the woman on lost who inspired jack's tattoo (the episode "stranger in a strange land" from season 3). that episode from lost was equally awful. it must be the curse of bai ling. every guest appearance she does on a show... makes the episode awful.
anyway, after watching the episodes of buffy and angel... the season finale of lost aired. without revealing too much... the episode was awesome. i'm going to miss the show when the series ends.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
I Suck At HBO Free Previews
yesterday marked the end of a promotion offered by verizon fios: the hbo free preview. now, i suck at hbo free previews. for those who are television challenged like my friend (hot amy), hbo (aka home box office) is a premium television service offered by fios, cable, etc. that airs movies all day long. in addition to showing numerous movies, hbo is also known for things like its original programming such as the sopranos and other various offerings like sports and concerts.
anyway, verizon decided to have its free preview of hbo the past few days. sadly, the free preview did not include the high definition versions of hbo, nor did it include any of the other channels in the hbo family. the free preview was just the original hbo. (hbo has numerous other channels.)
growing up, i used to love the free hbo preview that was offered by the cable company throughout various times of the year. my parents eventually broke down and ordered hbo at the urging of my brother. but before that, i remember sitting glued to the television with my brother... watching movie after movie. (i was a young impressionable child at the time.) sometimes, we would watch the same movie over and over again. it may seem strange... but it was fun.
now imagine the excitement that my brother and i had when a certain electronic device known as the vcr came out. we used to sit glued to the television... recording movies during the free preview onto vcr tapes. my brother would then create labels for the tapes with this contraption where you would have to spin a dial to a particular letter... squeeze the handle to imprint the letter on this red tape... then search for the next letter, etc. oh yeah... we were cool.
looking back, it was one of my fonder memories with my brother. plus, it may explain why i like to watch movies... any movie... good or bad. everything i am, i owe to hbo. just kidding.
even with my affinity for movies, karen and i don't have hbo now. hbo is simply not something that we could justify having... since we have such little time in the day as it is with our busy schedule. and as proof that we have so little time: of the three hbo free preview days, the only movie that i watched was blades of glory.
(the video below is the trailer for blades of glory.)
for anyone curious, blades of glory was silly. the movie was not the worst that i've seen. and it definitely was not one of the better ones either.
despite only watching the one movie, it was good having the hbo free preview. it brought back some fun memories of my childhood for me.
anyway, verizon decided to have its free preview of hbo the past few days. sadly, the free preview did not include the high definition versions of hbo, nor did it include any of the other channels in the hbo family. the free preview was just the original hbo. (hbo has numerous other channels.)
growing up, i used to love the free hbo preview that was offered by the cable company throughout various times of the year. my parents eventually broke down and ordered hbo at the urging of my brother. but before that, i remember sitting glued to the television with my brother... watching movie after movie. (i was a young impressionable child at the time.) sometimes, we would watch the same movie over and over again. it may seem strange... but it was fun.
now imagine the excitement that my brother and i had when a certain electronic device known as the vcr came out. we used to sit glued to the television... recording movies during the free preview onto vcr tapes. my brother would then create labels for the tapes with this contraption where you would have to spin a dial to a particular letter... squeeze the handle to imprint the letter on this red tape... then search for the next letter, etc. oh yeah... we were cool.
looking back, it was one of my fonder memories with my brother. plus, it may explain why i like to watch movies... any movie... good or bad. everything i am, i owe to hbo. just kidding.
even with my affinity for movies, karen and i don't have hbo now. hbo is simply not something that we could justify having... since we have such little time in the day as it is with our busy schedule. and as proof that we have so little time: of the three hbo free preview days, the only movie that i watched was blades of glory.
(the video below is the trailer for blades of glory.)
for anyone curious, blades of glory was silly. the movie was not the worst that i've seen. and it definitely was not one of the better ones either.
despite only watching the one movie, it was good having the hbo free preview. it brought back some fun memories of my childhood for me.
Monday, May 11, 2009
I Suck At Mother's Day
yesterday was mother's day. happy belated mother's day. now, i suck at mother's day. it turns out that mother's day originated to honor mothers who lost their children.
according to my friend wikipedia:
"In its present form, Mother's Day was established by Anna Marie Jarvis, following the death of her mother on May 9, 1905; she campaigned to establish Mother's Day as a U.S. national, and later an international, holiday.
Originally the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, the site of the original Mother's Day commemoration, where Anna handed out carnations, the International Mother's Day Shrine is now a National Historic Landmark. From there, the custom caught on—spreading eventually to 46 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states as early as 1912, beginning with West Virginia. On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day and requesting a proclamation. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made that proclamation, declaring the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war."
i found the whole origin of mother's day a little ironic. after all, karen and i lost our son (braden) last year. granted, we did not lose braden to a war (at least not in the invasion of land sense). he did, however, bravely fight until the end.
truth be told, neither karen nor i were particularly looking forward to mother's day. there were just too many reminders of braden's loss. after all, at this same time last year, karen and i were feeling the excitement of her pregnancy with braden and we had planned to share the news with... our respective mothers.
anyway, i really was not sure what to expect in the morning. i woke up early to make some carrot and raisin muffins to bring to my favorite sister-in-law's (janine) so that karen could sleep in. (it was, after all, her day.) janine was having their parents and my parents over for brunch. i was a little hesitant about the muffins at first because... well, i hardly bake... and i wasn't sure if they would even taste good. (i have been told, however, that the muffins turned out quite delicious.)
adding to my feeling of dread for the day was the fact that my parents got lost on the way to janine's. as i stood outside to flag my parents down, i kept thinking... this is going to be one of those days. as it turned out, it was a good time at janine's. the brunch was great. my parents had a fun time. my mom enjoyed playing wii bowling with my niece (kaleigh).
there was this one moment while at janine's where i almost started to tear. it really was not bad or anything. i had been playing with kaleigh for most of the day. as i sat with kaleigh on my lap at the dinner table, i looked up to see my mom smiling at me. it's tough for me to describe the look she had in her eyes. it was as though my mom were proudly smiling at me as i played with her grandchild or something. that's probably the best way i could describe it. despite everything that has happened, my mom was proud of me.
anyway, following brunch, karen and i went to visit braden at the cemetery. as it so happens, karen's parents had also planned on visiting braden after brunch. earlier in the day, karen's father told us a story about how braden was lucky yet again in helping him with a scratch ticket. that's my little angel.
needless to say, it was a little tough for me at the cemetery. every time i looked at braden's grave marker, all i could think of was what could have been. had my in-laws not been there at the cemetery with us, i probably would have broken down completely in tears.
the rest of the day simply passed by rather quickly. janine, my favorite brother-in-law (pj), my nephew (pj) and kaleigh stopped on over for a little while. it turns out, pj has never seen the movie: the sound of music. so there was some discussion about that while they were over.
as well, my bff (kerry) also stopped on over. kerry happened to be down in the south shore yesterday because she drove her mother home. her mother lives in hingham. it was great seeing kerry again. it was actually a great way to end the day because karen, kerry and i basically spent the rest of the night just hanging out, plopped on our couch cuddled in blankets, watching episodes of veronica mars. (for anyone curious, veronica mars is a great show. too bad it got cancelled.)
we had not watched any episodes of veronica mars in quite some time. so it was a little difficult to remember what happened the last time we watched the show. nonetheless, we had a fun time hanging out together.
all in all, i was pleasantly surprised about how the entire day turned out. don't get me wrong... by no means was i jumping for joy yesterday. i was expecting the day to be somber, or at least i was expecting myself to be in one of those anti-social moods. sure, i had my moments. but in general, the day was actually not as bad as i had been dreading.
and most importantly (because it was mother's day), karen was all right yesterday. she was actually probably better than me... feeling-wise. perhaps that was where braden got his strength of will from... his mom.
according to my friend wikipedia:
"In its present form, Mother's Day was established by Anna Marie Jarvis, following the death of her mother on May 9, 1905; she campaigned to establish Mother's Day as a U.S. national, and later an international, holiday.
Originally the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, the site of the original Mother's Day commemoration, where Anna handed out carnations, the International Mother's Day Shrine is now a National Historic Landmark. From there, the custom caught on—spreading eventually to 46 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states as early as 1912, beginning with West Virginia. On May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day and requesting a proclamation. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made that proclamation, declaring the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war."
i found the whole origin of mother's day a little ironic. after all, karen and i lost our son (braden) last year. granted, we did not lose braden to a war (at least not in the invasion of land sense). he did, however, bravely fight until the end.
truth be told, neither karen nor i were particularly looking forward to mother's day. there were just too many reminders of braden's loss. after all, at this same time last year, karen and i were feeling the excitement of her pregnancy with braden and we had planned to share the news with... our respective mothers.
anyway, i really was not sure what to expect in the morning. i woke up early to make some carrot and raisin muffins to bring to my favorite sister-in-law's (janine) so that karen could sleep in. (it was, after all, her day.) janine was having their parents and my parents over for brunch. i was a little hesitant about the muffins at first because... well, i hardly bake... and i wasn't sure if they would even taste good. (i have been told, however, that the muffins turned out quite delicious.)
adding to my feeling of dread for the day was the fact that my parents got lost on the way to janine's. as i stood outside to flag my parents down, i kept thinking... this is going to be one of those days. as it turned out, it was a good time at janine's. the brunch was great. my parents had a fun time. my mom enjoyed playing wii bowling with my niece (kaleigh).
there was this one moment while at janine's where i almost started to tear. it really was not bad or anything. i had been playing with kaleigh for most of the day. as i sat with kaleigh on my lap at the dinner table, i looked up to see my mom smiling at me. it's tough for me to describe the look she had in her eyes. it was as though my mom were proudly smiling at me as i played with her grandchild or something. that's probably the best way i could describe it. despite everything that has happened, my mom was proud of me.
anyway, following brunch, karen and i went to visit braden at the cemetery. as it so happens, karen's parents had also planned on visiting braden after brunch. earlier in the day, karen's father told us a story about how braden was lucky yet again in helping him with a scratch ticket. that's my little angel.
needless to say, it was a little tough for me at the cemetery. every time i looked at braden's grave marker, all i could think of was what could have been. had my in-laws not been there at the cemetery with us, i probably would have broken down completely in tears.
the rest of the day simply passed by rather quickly. janine, my favorite brother-in-law (pj), my nephew (pj) and kaleigh stopped on over for a little while. it turns out, pj has never seen the movie: the sound of music. so there was some discussion about that while they were over.
as well, my bff (kerry) also stopped on over. kerry happened to be down in the south shore yesterday because she drove her mother home. her mother lives in hingham. it was great seeing kerry again. it was actually a great way to end the day because karen, kerry and i basically spent the rest of the night just hanging out, plopped on our couch cuddled in blankets, watching episodes of veronica mars. (for anyone curious, veronica mars is a great show. too bad it got cancelled.)
we had not watched any episodes of veronica mars in quite some time. so it was a little difficult to remember what happened the last time we watched the show. nonetheless, we had a fun time hanging out together.
all in all, i was pleasantly surprised about how the entire day turned out. don't get me wrong... by no means was i jumping for joy yesterday. i was expecting the day to be somber, or at least i was expecting myself to be in one of those anti-social moods. sure, i had my moments. but in general, the day was actually not as bad as i had been dreading.
and most importantly (because it was mother's day), karen was all right yesterday. she was actually probably better than me... feeling-wise. perhaps that was where braden got his strength of will from... his mom.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I Suck At Installing A Thermostat
yesterday, karen and my favorite sister-in-law (janine) did some sisterly bonding. the two of them had plans to spend the afternoon together, which included a little trip to the salon for pedicures.
so while they were out and about, i attempted to do some projects around the house. the main project for the day: install a thermostat. now, i suck at installing a thermostat.
interestingly enough, the last thermostat i tried to install was at my bff's (kerry) place in salem. at the time, kerry had been looking for a programmable thermostat and karen and i just happened to have an extra one... a result of when we had our second floor added onto our existing home. unfortunately, i never got to finish that installation because of the unexpected wiring at kerry's place. kerry's uncle has since finished installing the thermostat.
anyway, karen and i recently purchased a new programmable thermostat to replace the existing thermostat on the second floor. the existing thermostat is not programmable and was installed by the contractors who added our second floor. there was nothing wrong with the current thermostat. it worked just fine. for karen and i, however, it was more a matter of being efficient and saving energy. (we like to help the environment that way.)
of course, people may now be thinking... why didn't karen and i just replace the thermostat with the programmable thermostat we gave to kerry? well, for anyone who knows me... i'm quite particular about things. the thermostat that we gave to kerry would not have looked right had it replaced the non-programmable thermostat because it was much smaller in size. (there would then be a lot of touch-up paint.)
so naturally, karen and i decided upon a new programmable thermostat that was of comparable size to the non-programmable one. granted, there still would be some paint to touch-up, but it would not be as much. and because i like neat gadgety type of gizmos, karen and i settled on a the thermostat with the touch screen lcd. sure, we may have gone a little overboard in picking a programmable thermostat with an lcd touch screen, but it looked cool.
anyway, the new digital programmable lcd touch screen thermostat was installed with ease. the only real trouble with the installation came with moving the location of the thermostat wire... which of course happened to be on the other side of the stud. (and by stud, i am not referring to myself... although if you want to refer to me as one, i will not object.)
as of right now, i am quite happy with the new thermostat. apparently, there is a whole slew of functions that the thermostat can perform. unfortunately, understanding those functions requires reading the operating manual that came with the thermostat... and well... those instructions are never fun to read. so needless to say, i have only programmed the date and time for the thermostat.
i just hope the thermostat actually works and can control the heating and cooling system of our house. just kidding. for anyone curious, yes i did test to make sure the thermostat would turn on the heat and the air conditioning. i am particular, remember?
anyway, karen was thrilled to see the new thermostat installed.
so while they were out and about, i attempted to do some projects around the house. the main project for the day: install a thermostat. now, i suck at installing a thermostat.
interestingly enough, the last thermostat i tried to install was at my bff's (kerry) place in salem. at the time, kerry had been looking for a programmable thermostat and karen and i just happened to have an extra one... a result of when we had our second floor added onto our existing home. unfortunately, i never got to finish that installation because of the unexpected wiring at kerry's place. kerry's uncle has since finished installing the thermostat.
anyway, karen and i recently purchased a new programmable thermostat to replace the existing thermostat on the second floor. the existing thermostat is not programmable and was installed by the contractors who added our second floor. there was nothing wrong with the current thermostat. it worked just fine. for karen and i, however, it was more a matter of being efficient and saving energy. (we like to help the environment that way.)
of course, people may now be thinking... why didn't karen and i just replace the thermostat with the programmable thermostat we gave to kerry? well, for anyone who knows me... i'm quite particular about things. the thermostat that we gave to kerry would not have looked right had it replaced the non-programmable thermostat because it was much smaller in size. (there would then be a lot of touch-up paint.)
so naturally, karen and i decided upon a new programmable thermostat that was of comparable size to the non-programmable one. granted, there still would be some paint to touch-up, but it would not be as much. and because i like neat gadgety type of gizmos, karen and i settled on a the thermostat with the touch screen lcd. sure, we may have gone a little overboard in picking a programmable thermostat with an lcd touch screen, but it looked cool.
anyway, the new digital programmable lcd touch screen thermostat was installed with ease. the only real trouble with the installation came with moving the location of the thermostat wire... which of course happened to be on the other side of the stud. (and by stud, i am not referring to myself... although if you want to refer to me as one, i will not object.)
as of right now, i am quite happy with the new thermostat. apparently, there is a whole slew of functions that the thermostat can perform. unfortunately, understanding those functions requires reading the operating manual that came with the thermostat... and well... those instructions are never fun to read. so needless to say, i have only programmed the date and time for the thermostat.
i just hope the thermostat actually works and can control the heating and cooling system of our house. just kidding. for anyone curious, yes i did test to make sure the thermostat would turn on the heat and the air conditioning. i am particular, remember?
anyway, karen was thrilled to see the new thermostat installed.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
I Suck At Running
every friday, karen works part-time at the south shore ymca in quincy. for the past few weeks, i have decided to at least do some sort of physical activity while i wait for karen as she finishes working at the ymca. that physical activity: running.
now, i suck at running. i don't particularly enjoy running long distances. in terms of muscle fibers, my body makeup has historically leaned more toward fast twitch(ie. sprinting) than slow twitch (ie. distance). although these days, i would be happy if my muscles twitched at all. (for a quick anatomy and physiology walkthrough on muscle fibers, see my friend about.com.)
one of the things i do, however, enjoy about running is the feeling afterwards. the feeling is not so much a feeling of "why on earth did i just put my body through this long agonizing run", but more like a clearing of the mind. this clearing of the mind is commonly referred to as a "runner's high"... or an endorphin rush.
and according to my friend wikipedia:
"The term endorphin rush has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress, supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins are released which prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals. Immediately after injury, endorphins allow humans to feel a sense of power and control over themselves that allows them to persist with activity for an extended time."
anyway, with the upcoming commercial holiday known as mother's day... and the possible dilemma of getting a present for karen, i figured i would unwind and gather my thoughts. so like any good junkie, i turned to my endorphins and ran on friday.
i originally had plans to run with my friend (jen) in the morning. unfortunately, jen was not feeling too well. so needless to say, those plans fell through.
on the spur of the moment, i asked to see if my friend (andrea) were interested in running at the ymca. as it turned out, andrea was up for a little run.
(pictured below is andrea... and wally... at the ymca.)
anyway, i had great time running with andrea. it was good to just run and socialize... and clear my head of any thoughts or whatever about mother's day and the loss of my son (braden). andrea and i ran for quite some time too, so it was definitely a good workout. i hope andrea enjoyed the run as much as i did.
now, i suck at running. i don't particularly enjoy running long distances. in terms of muscle fibers, my body makeup has historically leaned more toward fast twitch(ie. sprinting) than slow twitch (ie. distance). although these days, i would be happy if my muscles twitched at all. (for a quick anatomy and physiology walkthrough on muscle fibers, see my friend about.com.)
one of the things i do, however, enjoy about running is the feeling afterwards. the feeling is not so much a feeling of "why on earth did i just put my body through this long agonizing run", but more like a clearing of the mind. this clearing of the mind is commonly referred to as a "runner's high"... or an endorphin rush.
and according to my friend wikipedia:
"The term endorphin rush has been adopted in popular speech to refer to feelings of exhilaration brought on by pain, danger, or other forms of stress, supposedly due to the influence of endorphins. When a nerve impulse reaches the spinal cord, endorphins are released which prevent nerve cells from releasing more pain signals. Immediately after injury, endorphins allow humans to feel a sense of power and control over themselves that allows them to persist with activity for an extended time."
anyway, with the upcoming commercial holiday known as mother's day... and the possible dilemma of getting a present for karen, i figured i would unwind and gather my thoughts. so like any good junkie, i turned to my endorphins and ran on friday.
i originally had plans to run with my friend (jen) in the morning. unfortunately, jen was not feeling too well. so needless to say, those plans fell through.
on the spur of the moment, i asked to see if my friend (andrea) were interested in running at the ymca. as it turned out, andrea was up for a little run.
(pictured below is andrea... and wally... at the ymca.)
anyway, i had great time running with andrea. it was good to just run and socialize... and clear my head of any thoughts or whatever about mother's day and the loss of my son (braden). andrea and i ran for quite some time too, so it was definitely a good workout. i hope andrea enjoyed the run as much as i did.
Friday, May 8, 2009
I Suck At Finding A Mother's Day Present
around this time last year, i was digging up our front lawn to plant new grass. after all, our front lawn last year was disaster. of course, with the heaping mound of dirt and the equally heaping pile of rocks that are currently sitting in our driveway, our house still does not have any curb appeal. it's just that last year, our curb appeal was worse... if you can believe that.
i remember those days of sod-busting. i disliked it... immensely. it's amazing how things can quickly change over the course of a year. given the choice, i would prefer sod-busting over my current predicament: finding a mother's day present. i suck at finding a mother's day present.
under normal circumstances, i probably would not be a little depressed about finding a mother's day present. after all, i love my mother... no problem there. unfortunately, karen and i lost our son (braden) in september of last year.
when we lost braden, the grief counselors told us that the holidays would be rough on us. oh how true they were. christmas was a little lackluster this year... same as easter. even the birthday celebrations since september have been a little "blah". now, mother's day is not really a holiday per se... but it is a day to celebrate mothers nonetheless.
so naturally, i'm in a quandry. i'm compelled to find a present or do something for karen to honor braden. after all, karen is a mother herself. yet at the same time, my finding of a present is also a painful reminder to karen... and to myself... that we lost our son. had braden survived, this issue would not even exist. i'm pretty sure that right now, braden would want us to celebrate his mother without him. nonetheless, it's easier said than done.
i'm not even sure what i'll end up doing. i know karen does not expect me to get her anything. she's not even sure how she'll feel on sunday... the actual mother's day. i have a feeling that i'll probably be feeling the same way when father's day arrives.
anyway, i don't know if this emotional rollercoaster for karen and i will ever end. i just know that this year karen and i will be thinking of braden on mother's day... and probably every mother's day after that. so while everyone else joyfully celebrates their mothers, i can only hope that everyone else also celebrates and remembers those mothers who lost children... and those women who are unable to be mothers.
i remember those days of sod-busting. i disliked it... immensely. it's amazing how things can quickly change over the course of a year. given the choice, i would prefer sod-busting over my current predicament: finding a mother's day present. i suck at finding a mother's day present.
under normal circumstances, i probably would not be a little depressed about finding a mother's day present. after all, i love my mother... no problem there. unfortunately, karen and i lost our son (braden) in september of last year.
when we lost braden, the grief counselors told us that the holidays would be rough on us. oh how true they were. christmas was a little lackluster this year... same as easter. even the birthday celebrations since september have been a little "blah". now, mother's day is not really a holiday per se... but it is a day to celebrate mothers nonetheless.
so naturally, i'm in a quandry. i'm compelled to find a present or do something for karen to honor braden. after all, karen is a mother herself. yet at the same time, my finding of a present is also a painful reminder to karen... and to myself... that we lost our son. had braden survived, this issue would not even exist. i'm pretty sure that right now, braden would want us to celebrate his mother without him. nonetheless, it's easier said than done.
i'm not even sure what i'll end up doing. i know karen does not expect me to get her anything. she's not even sure how she'll feel on sunday... the actual mother's day. i have a feeling that i'll probably be feeling the same way when father's day arrives.
anyway, i don't know if this emotional rollercoaster for karen and i will ever end. i just know that this year karen and i will be thinking of braden on mother's day... and probably every mother's day after that. so while everyone else joyfully celebrates their mothers, i can only hope that everyone else also celebrates and remembers those mothers who lost children... and those women who are unable to be mothers.
I Suck At Lost
last night, karen and i hung out with our friends (marc and kelley). after all, it was our usual night to watch the latest episode of lost... as well as watch some more episodes of televisions greatest show: buffy the vampire slayer.
too bad i suck lost. i do, however, still think lost is the best show currently on the air. without revealing anything, i'll just say the episode of lost was good. i can't wait for the season finale next week. truth be told, i don't know what the four of us will do until the next season of lost... except watch more buffy/angel, i suppose.
in addition to watching lost, we ordered food from the schoolhouse pizza located in quincy. karen and i ordered "mailman dan's special delivery". aside from the pornographic sounding name, "mailman dan's special delivery is a specialty pizza with panko crusted chicken and mozzarella. needless to say, the pizza was delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) (i suppose you can also cue the cheesy pornographic music too... although porn and rachael ray do not mix... at least not in my mind.)
following lost, we watched a couple of episodes of buffy the vampire slayer. the episodes were: "the i in team", about buffy's brief stint with the initiative; and "goodbye iowa", about riley and his withdrawal from the drugs supplied to him by the government... all the while the nemesis adam is loose.
it's too bad we could not make it to the episode afterwards. the episode afterwards features the one and only: faith. knowing karen's dislike for the faith character... it's probably best that we didn't.
anyway, it was another good night as usual. the food was great. kelley's baked goods were great. marc got accepted to the masters program at boston university... which was great. lost and buffy were fantastic. so, it was a good night all around.
too bad i suck lost. i do, however, still think lost is the best show currently on the air. without revealing anything, i'll just say the episode of lost was good. i can't wait for the season finale next week. truth be told, i don't know what the four of us will do until the next season of lost... except watch more buffy/angel, i suppose.
in addition to watching lost, we ordered food from the schoolhouse pizza located in quincy. karen and i ordered "mailman dan's special delivery". aside from the pornographic sounding name, "mailman dan's special delivery is a specialty pizza with panko crusted chicken and mozzarella. needless to say, the pizza was delicious. (cue rachael ray's "yum-o" sound.) (i suppose you can also cue the cheesy pornographic music too... although porn and rachael ray do not mix... at least not in my mind.)
following lost, we watched a couple of episodes of buffy the vampire slayer. the episodes were: "the i in team", about buffy's brief stint with the initiative; and "goodbye iowa", about riley and his withdrawal from the drugs supplied to him by the government... all the while the nemesis adam is loose.
it's too bad we could not make it to the episode afterwards. the episode afterwards features the one and only: faith. knowing karen's dislike for the faith character... it's probably best that we didn't.
anyway, it was another good night as usual. the food was great. kelley's baked goods were great. marc got accepted to the masters program at boston university... which was great. lost and buffy were fantastic. so, it was a good night all around.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
I Suck At Wild Ginger
in terms of being a good kidnapper, last night was a close call.
as it turns out, my friend (hot amy) came over last night. apparently, hot amy and karen still needed to correct one more case study assignment for their class. i believe now, they are both finished teaching at simmons college for the year.
luckily, i did not have to do too much scrambling to hide hot amy's beloved stuffed animal: wally. wally was already shackled in chains and gagged... cowering in fear in my crawlspace. truth be told, i'd probably cower in fear too if i had to be in my crawlspace. hopefully, the mice won't eat wally... just kidding.
regardless, hot amy's attempts to find wally proved to be futile. don't mess with trained kidnapping professionals.
(pictured below is wally with my right hand man: dave batista. don't mess with dave either. if i were wally, i would be afraid... very afraid.)
anyway, with hot amy coming over, we decided to have thai cuisine for dinner. so, we ordered from wild ginger, which is located on route 53 in norwell. now, i suck at wild ginger.
i have never been to wild ginger. when wild ginger first opened, the restaurant had a promotion going on where lunch was free for a couple of hours on opening day. never one to pass up free food, i was intrigued.
sadly, i did not venture in to the restaurant because the parking lot was absolutely packed that day. ever since that day, however, i have been somewhat curious about the food... just to see how it compared to other thai restaurants i have eaten at.
as it turns out, the food is pretty good. i had the ever spicy... drunken noodles. i think i like to order drunken noodles just because of the adjective "drunken". the word "drunken" just sounds so dangerously intriguing... yet fun. and just so you know, there is no alcohol in drunken noodles... so i have no idea where the name comes from.
if you are to believe wiki answers:
"No one is sure where the name of this dish comes from. Some believe it is called drunken noodles because it's an excellent hangover cure. Others believe that it is so hot that the eater has to be drunk to be able to stand it, while some are sure that it's because one becomes drunk trying to drown out the heat with alcohol. Still others believe that the name comes from the wide assortment of ingredients the dish contains: The chef is drunk enough to throw in a bunch of vegetables and spices without thinking it over. The most probable explanation is that this is one of the only foods available on the streets of Thailand late at night and in the very early morning, the times when inebriated revelers are leaving places of celebration. It is very possible that the extremely "wobbly" noodles themselves give the dish its name."
my first choice was the ever popular... pad thai, but since hot amy ordered that, i did not want to copy her. for anyone curious... yes, i do have a tendency to avoid duplicating what someone else has ordered. i have no idea why... probably because i enjoy uniqueness. nevertheless, it's just one of my many odd tendencies... such as liking round tables.
anyway, wild ginger was good. and as luck would have it, i get to have karen's leftovers for lunch! one of the benefits of eating with dietitians: enjoying leftovers. it seems like a lot of dietitians are not part of the clean plate club, which i myself am part of.
the one thing, however, that was not so good at wild ginger was the thai rolls. the thai rolls were okay, but i have eaten better thai rolls elsewhere.
as it turns out, my friend (hot amy) came over last night. apparently, hot amy and karen still needed to correct one more case study assignment for their class. i believe now, they are both finished teaching at simmons college for the year.
luckily, i did not have to do too much scrambling to hide hot amy's beloved stuffed animal: wally. wally was already shackled in chains and gagged... cowering in fear in my crawlspace. truth be told, i'd probably cower in fear too if i had to be in my crawlspace. hopefully, the mice won't eat wally... just kidding.
regardless, hot amy's attempts to find wally proved to be futile. don't mess with trained kidnapping professionals.
(pictured below is wally with my right hand man: dave batista. don't mess with dave either. if i were wally, i would be afraid... very afraid.)
anyway, with hot amy coming over, we decided to have thai cuisine for dinner. so, we ordered from wild ginger, which is located on route 53 in norwell. now, i suck at wild ginger.
i have never been to wild ginger. when wild ginger first opened, the restaurant had a promotion going on where lunch was free for a couple of hours on opening day. never one to pass up free food, i was intrigued.
sadly, i did not venture in to the restaurant because the parking lot was absolutely packed that day. ever since that day, however, i have been somewhat curious about the food... just to see how it compared to other thai restaurants i have eaten at.
as it turns out, the food is pretty good. i had the ever spicy... drunken noodles. i think i like to order drunken noodles just because of the adjective "drunken". the word "drunken" just sounds so dangerously intriguing... yet fun. and just so you know, there is no alcohol in drunken noodles... so i have no idea where the name comes from.
if you are to believe wiki answers:
"No one is sure where the name of this dish comes from. Some believe it is called drunken noodles because it's an excellent hangover cure. Others believe that it is so hot that the eater has to be drunk to be able to stand it, while some are sure that it's because one becomes drunk trying to drown out the heat with alcohol. Still others believe that the name comes from the wide assortment of ingredients the dish contains: The chef is drunk enough to throw in a bunch of vegetables and spices without thinking it over. The most probable explanation is that this is one of the only foods available on the streets of Thailand late at night and in the very early morning, the times when inebriated revelers are leaving places of celebration. It is very possible that the extremely "wobbly" noodles themselves give the dish its name."
my first choice was the ever popular... pad thai, but since hot amy ordered that, i did not want to copy her. for anyone curious... yes, i do have a tendency to avoid duplicating what someone else has ordered. i have no idea why... probably because i enjoy uniqueness. nevertheless, it's just one of my many odd tendencies... such as liking round tables.
anyway, wild ginger was good. and as luck would have it, i get to have karen's leftovers for lunch! one of the benefits of eating with dietitians: enjoying leftovers. it seems like a lot of dietitians are not part of the clean plate club, which i myself am part of.
the one thing, however, that was not so good at wild ginger was the thai rolls. the thai rolls were okay, but i have eaten better thai rolls elsewhere.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
I Suck At Cigars
yesterday was cinco de mayo. happy belated cinco de mayo!
to celebrate cinco de mayo, i made a little brief trip to visit my bff (kerry) who lives in salem. unfortunately, kerry was not home when i made my little visit. i just happened to be in the neighborhood, because i worked in the marblehead office yesterday.
although it would have been nice to see kerry, i actually was at her place to run an errand. the errand: drop off a cigar.
now, i suck at cigars. it just so happened that one day when i was visiting my favorite sister-in-law (janine), my favorite brother-in-law (pj) handed me a cigar. as nice a gesture as it was, i was a little confused. after all, i don't smoke cigars. even though cigars smell a whole lot better than cigarettes, i don't see the draw of cigars... cubans or no cubans.
adding to the confusion was the fact that pj told me that the cigar was actually for kerry. to my knowledge, kerry does not smoke cigars either... so you can imagine the perplexed look i must have had when pj gave me the cigar and told me it was for kerry. as it turned out, kerry asked pj to get her a cigar.
i have been subsequently informed that the cigar is for some sort of joke gift. although i do not exactly know what type of joke involves a cigar, i have been told that the cigar does not involve any connection to former president bill clinton and any white house interns... which is probably good.
needless to say, to celebrate cinco de mayo, i became a cigar smuggler... transporting a cigar across the city/town lines of the commonwealth of massachusetts. well, at least that's what it felt like since i was asked to transport a certain item whose purpose i did not fully understand.
(pictured below is the cigar kerry requested... along with wally.)
apparently, there are no cigar stores in salem. hopefully, kerry got the smuggled good okay. it being my first smuggling job, i left the cigar on her front porch... on the wooden table pictured above.
to celebrate cinco de mayo, i made a little brief trip to visit my bff (kerry) who lives in salem. unfortunately, kerry was not home when i made my little visit. i just happened to be in the neighborhood, because i worked in the marblehead office yesterday.
although it would have been nice to see kerry, i actually was at her place to run an errand. the errand: drop off a cigar.
now, i suck at cigars. it just so happened that one day when i was visiting my favorite sister-in-law (janine), my favorite brother-in-law (pj) handed me a cigar. as nice a gesture as it was, i was a little confused. after all, i don't smoke cigars. even though cigars smell a whole lot better than cigarettes, i don't see the draw of cigars... cubans or no cubans.
adding to the confusion was the fact that pj told me that the cigar was actually for kerry. to my knowledge, kerry does not smoke cigars either... so you can imagine the perplexed look i must have had when pj gave me the cigar and told me it was for kerry. as it turned out, kerry asked pj to get her a cigar.
i have been subsequently informed that the cigar is for some sort of joke gift. although i do not exactly know what type of joke involves a cigar, i have been told that the cigar does not involve any connection to former president bill clinton and any white house interns... which is probably good.
needless to say, to celebrate cinco de mayo, i became a cigar smuggler... transporting a cigar across the city/town lines of the commonwealth of massachusetts. well, at least that's what it felt like since i was asked to transport a certain item whose purpose i did not fully understand.
(pictured below is the cigar kerry requested... along with wally.)
apparently, there are no cigar stores in salem. hopefully, kerry got the smuggled good okay. it being my first smuggling job, i left the cigar on her front porch... on the wooden table pictured above.
Monday, May 4, 2009
I Suck At Having Lunch With My Parents
yesterday, my parents stopped by for lunch.
as part of the duties bestowed upon me as being the only son still residing within the commonwealth of massachusetts, i get to read and explain to my parents all the mail that they do not "understand". and by understand, i mean... hardly looked at and read. at least, that is the frustration that i sometimes feel when they ask me to read their mail.
of course, my parents do have some validity to their claim. my parents, after all, are not fluent in written english. (and truth be told, they are not all that fluent in verbal english.) i just sometimes wish they would at least take the initiative and attempt to make out the words or something themselves, as opposed to just assuming that i will be able to read and explain things to them. i would even be okay if they humored me and pretended.
anyway, enough about my griping. my parents stopped by with one of their friends (susan). when my parents originally asked about stopping by for lunch, i told them that i would make lunch for them (my legendary mac 'n cheese). so, i spent the morning preparing the meal... followed by a quick trip to karen's grandparents.
karen's grandparents in hanover needed technical help with one of their televisions... and their phone. and with my apparent genetics... i was the person to ask. just kidding. i was happy to help them out. (for anyone curious, it turns out that there really was no issue with the television and their phone has a loose connection.)
following the brief visit with karen's grandparents, karen and i then worked on the yard: karen working on her garden; me on mowing the lawn before the rain came. we didn't get too far into our yard work before my parents and susan arrived.
and as typical with my parents, they brought food... even though i told them that i had prepared lunch. this is why i suck at having lunch with my parents. i try to do things for them so that they can relax and enjoy themselves... only that they end up doing these other unexpected things. as it turned out, their friend susan was craving scallion pancakes and crescent rolls... so my parents brought them. thus, i quickly made the additional items along with the mac 'n cheese.
anyway, i know i should not complain about my parents. they mean well and i love them whole-heartedly. lunch actually went well. susan had asked to look at our wedding photos because she had never seen them. so we spent much of the time after lunch looking at pictures. my poor purple saturn was in one of those pictures. it was nice to remember that day.
my parents, and susan for that matter, also enjoyed the mac 'n cheese meal. in fact, my mom now wants the recipe. in return, my mom offered to give me her recipe for scallion pancakes. who would have thought that my mom and i would be trading recipes? nevertheless, i am glad my parents enjoyed lunch. it's the least i could do for them.
as part of the duties bestowed upon me as being the only son still residing within the commonwealth of massachusetts, i get to read and explain to my parents all the mail that they do not "understand". and by understand, i mean... hardly looked at and read. at least, that is the frustration that i sometimes feel when they ask me to read their mail.
of course, my parents do have some validity to their claim. my parents, after all, are not fluent in written english. (and truth be told, they are not all that fluent in verbal english.) i just sometimes wish they would at least take the initiative and attempt to make out the words or something themselves, as opposed to just assuming that i will be able to read and explain things to them. i would even be okay if they humored me and pretended.
anyway, enough about my griping. my parents stopped by with one of their friends (susan). when my parents originally asked about stopping by for lunch, i told them that i would make lunch for them (my legendary mac 'n cheese). so, i spent the morning preparing the meal... followed by a quick trip to karen's grandparents.
karen's grandparents in hanover needed technical help with one of their televisions... and their phone. and with my apparent genetics... i was the person to ask. just kidding. i was happy to help them out. (for anyone curious, it turns out that there really was no issue with the television and their phone has a loose connection.)
following the brief visit with karen's grandparents, karen and i then worked on the yard: karen working on her garden; me on mowing the lawn before the rain came. we didn't get too far into our yard work before my parents and susan arrived.
and as typical with my parents, they brought food... even though i told them that i had prepared lunch. this is why i suck at having lunch with my parents. i try to do things for them so that they can relax and enjoy themselves... only that they end up doing these other unexpected things. as it turned out, their friend susan was craving scallion pancakes and crescent rolls... so my parents brought them. thus, i quickly made the additional items along with the mac 'n cheese.
anyway, i know i should not complain about my parents. they mean well and i love them whole-heartedly. lunch actually went well. susan had asked to look at our wedding photos because she had never seen them. so we spent much of the time after lunch looking at pictures. my poor purple saturn was in one of those pictures. it was nice to remember that day.
my parents, and susan for that matter, also enjoyed the mac 'n cheese meal. in fact, my mom now wants the recipe. in return, my mom offered to give me her recipe for scallion pancakes. who would have thought that my mom and i would be trading recipes? nevertheless, i am glad my parents enjoyed lunch. it's the least i could do for them.
I Suck At Wolverine
saturday was quite the movie day.
following an afternoon of watching the hannah montana movie with our niece (kaleigh), karen and i went out to the theaters again to watch another movie with my friends (marc and kelley).
the movie: x-men origins: wolverine. now i suck at wolverine. i'll admit it. i read a lot of comic books growing up. the whole fantasy world of good versus evil may have warped my impressionable mind a little during my informative childhood years.
i remember growing up... wolverine was always a big fan favorite. for anyone curious, wolverine has the superpower of heightened senses (smell) and the ability to heal really quickly. and, it just so happens that his skeleton is bonded with a super duper indestructible metal alloy, fictitiously known as adamantium. oh... and his big draw... claws. kids dig the claws.
anyway, i was never a big fan of wolverine growing up. i stuck with rooting for the less popular superheroes of the marvel universe... like hawkeye... the average dude who just happens to be good shooting a bow and arrow. i doubt they'll ever make a hawkeye movie... which is probably just as well.
(the video below is the trailer for wolverine.)
needless to say, the movie was all right. for a summer blockbuster, i may have been expecting more. but if you want to see a naked hugh jackman (who is the actor that plays wolverine)... then this is your movie. okay, so maybe you don't really get to see all of hugh jackman's manhood...
for those who are expecting to see some ryan reynolds though, you may be disappointed. ryan reynolds plays wade wilson (not the former nfl quarterback) turned into mutant hodgepodge "deadpool". even though ryan reynolds seems to enjoy showing off his body... which i suppose with a body like his, who wouldn't?... fans don't get to see him shirtless until the end. (i have been told that ryan reynolds is marc's man-crush.)
all in all, the movie was ok. again, i think i was expecting more for a summer blockbuster. the movie was by no means awful... and i've seen awful. i think my expectations were just a little too high for the fan favorite superhero movie.
this almost reminded me of the time when i saw "wedding crashers". i had heard all the hype about how awesome and funny "wedding crashers" was... and then when i watched it... i was somewhat disappointed. don't get me wrong, "wedding crashers" was funny and it had its moments. on a whole, "wedding crashers" was a good movie... but i wouldn't call it awesome. i almost feel like wolverine was the same way: too much hype to live up to.
anyway, i had a good time with marc and kelley as usual. we were lucky enough to catch an episode of angel and buffy the vampire slayer as well before the movie. the episodes were respectively: "somnambulist" about a serial killer sired by angel and "a new man" about giles being turned into a demon by his old friend, ethan rayne.
so needless to say, it definitely made it a good time.
following an afternoon of watching the hannah montana movie with our niece (kaleigh), karen and i went out to the theaters again to watch another movie with my friends (marc and kelley).
the movie: x-men origins: wolverine. now i suck at wolverine. i'll admit it. i read a lot of comic books growing up. the whole fantasy world of good versus evil may have warped my impressionable mind a little during my informative childhood years.
i remember growing up... wolverine was always a big fan favorite. for anyone curious, wolverine has the superpower of heightened senses (smell) and the ability to heal really quickly. and, it just so happens that his skeleton is bonded with a super duper indestructible metal alloy, fictitiously known as adamantium. oh... and his big draw... claws. kids dig the claws.
anyway, i was never a big fan of wolverine growing up. i stuck with rooting for the less popular superheroes of the marvel universe... like hawkeye... the average dude who just happens to be good shooting a bow and arrow. i doubt they'll ever make a hawkeye movie... which is probably just as well.
(the video below is the trailer for wolverine.)
needless to say, the movie was all right. for a summer blockbuster, i may have been expecting more. but if you want to see a naked hugh jackman (who is the actor that plays wolverine)... then this is your movie. okay, so maybe you don't really get to see all of hugh jackman's manhood...
for those who are expecting to see some ryan reynolds though, you may be disappointed. ryan reynolds plays wade wilson (not the former nfl quarterback) turned into mutant hodgepodge "deadpool". even though ryan reynolds seems to enjoy showing off his body... which i suppose with a body like his, who wouldn't?... fans don't get to see him shirtless until the end. (i have been told that ryan reynolds is marc's man-crush.)
all in all, the movie was ok. again, i think i was expecting more for a summer blockbuster. the movie was by no means awful... and i've seen awful. i think my expectations were just a little too high for the fan favorite superhero movie.
this almost reminded me of the time when i saw "wedding crashers". i had heard all the hype about how awesome and funny "wedding crashers" was... and then when i watched it... i was somewhat disappointed. don't get me wrong, "wedding crashers" was funny and it had its moments. on a whole, "wedding crashers" was a good movie... but i wouldn't call it awesome. i almost feel like wolverine was the same way: too much hype to live up to.
anyway, i had a good time with marc and kelley as usual. we were lucky enough to catch an episode of angel and buffy the vampire slayer as well before the movie. the episodes were respectively: "somnambulist" about a serial killer sired by angel and "a new man" about giles being turned into a demon by his old friend, ethan rayne.
so needless to say, it definitely made it a good time.
I Suck At Celebrating My Niece's Birthday
my niece (kaleigh) turned 5 years old last week. to celebrate my niece's birthday, karen and i took her to see the new hannah montana movie. now, i suck at celebrating my niece's birthday.
karen and i have been taking our niece and nephew (pj) out on their birthdays for some time now. we had started doing activities with them for their birthdays because we felt that kids in general seem to receive a lot of stuff on their birthdays. (although it should be noted... kaleigh and pj do not have that many things in comparison to other children.) so rather than add to a collection of material wealth, we figured that we would share a memory with our niece and nephew on their birthday instead.
so on saturday, hannah montana the movie it was. kaleigh absolutely loves hannah montana. after all, she dressed up like hannah montana for her birthday party last year.
(the video below is the hannah montana movie trailer.)
i think kaleigh was quite excited about the movie. at least, she seemed rather excited about the movie when karen and i picked her up. naturally, we pumped her full of sugar before the movie to get her even more excited... just in case. just kidding.
karen and i took kaleigh out for lunch before the movie. we went to friendly's in norwell... where kaleigh got to order her desired meal: mac 'n cheese... with hot dogs... and a nice heaping sundae with gummy bears, reese's pieces, and crushed oreos. (for anyone curious, i had originally ordered a grilled chicken... yet interestingly enough, i received something else of the fried chicken variety. even though it was not what i ordered, i still ate it.)
anyway, kaleigh got a balloon on our way out of friendly's. the waitstaff blew up a special purple balloon just for her. as kaleigh told karen and i... purple is her favorite color. her other favorite colors: pink and red and yellow and black... and [insert color]. i have a feeling the sugar was kicking in and kaleigh was just naming colors.
needless to say, we went to the patriot cinemas in hanover to watch the movie.
(pictured below is kaleigh at the movie theater... with wally.)
of course at the movie, we pumped kaleigh full of more sugar: fruit punch and chocolate raisinettes.
surprisingly, the movie itself was not that bad. i probably should not have been surprised. after all, disney has the whole story-telling down to a complete science with it's predictable cookie-cutter type of family movie. and yes... hannah montana was very predictable. nonetheless, the movie was enjoyable.
in fact, i actually enjoyed the movie more than i enjoyed the "twilight" movie. for the life of me, i still don't understand the draw of "twilight". if i were an adolescent girl with the choice between the best of both worlds pop star versus the awfully written vampire romance... i think it's a no brainer: pop star.
anyway, it was a good time. and i think kaleigh enjoyed her day, which is most important after all. happy birthday again kaleigh!
karen and i have been taking our niece and nephew (pj) out on their birthdays for some time now. we had started doing activities with them for their birthdays because we felt that kids in general seem to receive a lot of stuff on their birthdays. (although it should be noted... kaleigh and pj do not have that many things in comparison to other children.) so rather than add to a collection of material wealth, we figured that we would share a memory with our niece and nephew on their birthday instead.
so on saturday, hannah montana the movie it was. kaleigh absolutely loves hannah montana. after all, she dressed up like hannah montana for her birthday party last year.
(the video below is the hannah montana movie trailer.)
i think kaleigh was quite excited about the movie. at least, she seemed rather excited about the movie when karen and i picked her up. naturally, we pumped her full of sugar before the movie to get her even more excited... just in case. just kidding.
karen and i took kaleigh out for lunch before the movie. we went to friendly's in norwell... where kaleigh got to order her desired meal: mac 'n cheese... with hot dogs... and a nice heaping sundae with gummy bears, reese's pieces, and crushed oreos. (for anyone curious, i had originally ordered a grilled chicken... yet interestingly enough, i received something else of the fried chicken variety. even though it was not what i ordered, i still ate it.)
anyway, kaleigh got a balloon on our way out of friendly's. the waitstaff blew up a special purple balloon just for her. as kaleigh told karen and i... purple is her favorite color. her other favorite colors: pink and red and yellow and black... and [insert color]. i have a feeling the sugar was kicking in and kaleigh was just naming colors.
needless to say, we went to the patriot cinemas in hanover to watch the movie.
(pictured below is kaleigh at the movie theater... with wally.)
of course at the movie, we pumped kaleigh full of more sugar: fruit punch and chocolate raisinettes.
surprisingly, the movie itself was not that bad. i probably should not have been surprised. after all, disney has the whole story-telling down to a complete science with it's predictable cookie-cutter type of family movie. and yes... hannah montana was very predictable. nonetheless, the movie was enjoyable.
in fact, i actually enjoyed the movie more than i enjoyed the "twilight" movie. for the life of me, i still don't understand the draw of "twilight". if i were an adolescent girl with the choice between the best of both worlds pop star versus the awfully written vampire romance... i think it's a no brainer: pop star.
anyway, it was a good time. and i think kaleigh enjoyed her day, which is most important after all. happy birthday again kaleigh!
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