Awesome

No visibility on jersey turnpike

No really, she sounds better this time . . . really and such as

Happy Johnny Appleseed Day!

Right, so I am still sick. Or rather, I am sick and have been all week. A fantastic combination of stomach issues, head and back pain, sore throat and stuffy nose. Fabulous, oh and we are driving to RI tonight. Which I was kinda excited about cuz it is something different. A roadtrip. It is actually cheaper for us to get a car for the weekend and pay for gas than to fly this time. So driving it is. Which would be fun. Except that now I am sick and cranky.

But more importantly, on October 17th Matty and I are doing the AIDS Walk here in Philly as part of the UBH team (read: as the UBH team). So if you are in a giving mood and want to support me: http://www.aidsfundphilly.org/walk/participant.php?id=130754

So that is my little spiel. Thanks for reading.

Happy National Comic Book Day!

So I realized today in my sickness-induced-staring-at-my-laptop-instead-of-working stupor that I post a lot of things on twitter that I find around that I think are interesting and are probably blog-worthy but people who only read this (all 4 of you) and do not follow me on twitter (2 of you) miss out. So here is a compendium of recently tweeted items that I can think of/find before my gel is done running.

1) Apparently,

The English language makes a distinction between blue and green but some languages do not.

More information about Distinguishing blue from green in language can be found there. This was brought to my attention via ciggitycite (as many things are) and adds itself to the immensely enormous numbers of things that I never would have even thought needed to be thought about but apparently are. In detail.

2) An economy comic. No really, it is actually kinda funny. Also courtesy of ciggitycite.

3) A little bit of geek humor. The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time. My faves are 8 and of course 9. This was courtesy of Slashdot.

4) This (presumed) idiot was again found via ciggitycite. I mean really, right? C'mon, go to the library. It is free for Christ sakes. And good for civic . . something. But then, after twittering, it was brought to my attention that this service actually fucking exists. So there ya go.

5) This was a retweet from Jawnny and was subsequently added to my facebook page and so that probably covers pretty much all of my readership. But in case you missed it - The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. Apparently I would be Log Justice Palin.

Ok, well that is all for now. I hope that you enjoy. i will try to be more fair to the blog vs twitter-nesses or something.

Mmmmm

Homemade double mint cookie ice cream + homemade chocolate chip cookies equals deliciousness.

Happy Video Game Day!

Matty and I went on like a date thingy last night. First we went to Sonny's for cheesesteaks. I really just do not like Old City. Besides Sonny's. And Nicks. And Cuba Libre. Ok, I dont mind Old City in restaurants. I just dont like the people who are at most of the places in Old City. I also dont like riding the El. There are a lot of people. And they smell. Badly. So yeah. Not a fan. But anyway, back to my date. So after dinner we went to National Mechanics for a drink. We hadnt been and I wanted to check it out. Besides the thing on the wall (se previous post) it was fine. The food looked good and the drink menu was reasonable. $2 Lager, $2 PBR, $1 off drafts for happy hour. The crowd was generally older than I expected and louder than people that age should be. In my opinion. And then a tour came in? It was like a Once Upon a Nation tour? It was strange. And loud. And they kicked the keg on my snake bite, so it didnt taste right. But I would go back I think. After our drink we headed to Ritz 5 for a free screening of Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers' new film. The screening was apparently sponsored by WMMR, 950am ESPN and BEN FM. I dont know, I got the tickets via CNN. Sooo . . . yeah. Maybe Time Warner owns them? I dont know, whatever, the people they had working it sucked. They had this pre-show trivia contest with awful prizes, it was just bad. But the movie, once we finally got to see it, was good. I like Fargo better and it is hard to compare comedy to No Country for Old Men. But it was good. I would even go so far to say that it had great moments. Lots of great moments and the rest was really good. So I would recommend it. After the movie we took a bus home and I realized that it isnt really the El, it is public transit in Philly. I just wish it was less public :-). Oh and this is somehting I hadnt seen before but maybe you have. This guy on the bus had a travel chess set and it was just sitting in his lap so everyone could see it. And then this guy got on the bus and saw it and was like, hey you wanna play? And so they did. My first question is 1) Where were they going on the 21 that they were going to beable to play a game of chess. and 2) Is this a thing? LIke do chess players just meet up on buses, like in parks and play?

Oh and watch this. Because it is funny. And a friend of a friend made it and so I am helping to disseminate.

Not a fan of this at all

reading reading reading

So if you guessed our ages based on the books we have been reading recently you would probably be off by a decade or 2. Matty is working his way through the Harry Potters. He is currently on Goblet of Fire. We have also started watching the movies. I saw the first three before I read the books but he hadn't. We watched Sorceror's Stone Tuesday night. NO idea how to spell that. We should be getting Chamber of Secrets tomorrow. He seems to be enjoying them. But not loving them. Which is unfortunate. I was hoping he would love them. Though I didnt love the first 2 myself. We will see what happens.

I have been reading the His Dark Materials trilogy. Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, Amber Spyglass. We had seen Golden Compass, I got interested and then started reading about all the controversy surrounding them. About how they were anti-Church atheist propaganda blah blah blah and I assumed that it was simply religious crackpots looking for some new book to burn since Harry Potter hadnt really gotten them much of anywhere. After reading the first one I got a feeling of anti-establishment but not so much anti-church necessarily. Or not so much that I thought a child would really get it. But then I read the second one and I totally saw the issue. And then I just finished the last one. And . . . well I kinda see their point. I am of course not for sensorship or book burnings or anything. But I can see why the religious are pissed the fuck off. Because it isnt like there is a theme of atheism or anti-religion in the books. That is the fucking plot. I mean if you can read, you know what he is getting at. Because he isnt just getting at it, he is saying it. And I dont necessarily think that it is something that a lot of kids would understand. I think they are books that should be read and then discussed. But I do not see a whole lot of discussion in this country between kids and their parents over the books they are reading. Especially books that deal with this sort of heavy god stuff. Which isnt the author's fault. It is the parents fault. But maybe I can see the parents' point of not wanting their young kids exposed to it. Maybe. Now the recommended ages appear to be 10-12 and up. And maybe at that age it would be cool. Though I think I would have been pretty confused at that age.

Now for movie adaptations . . . Golden Compass was a decent movie. Great special effects, interesting story. Left me watning more. And apparently the second and third were officially going to be made into movies as well. However New Line says that due to the disappointing box offce from the first, the sequels are being held back at least. My biggest question to New Line is, did you actually read these books? Because I cant imagine the studio exec who decided that the second two books should be made into major release movies. I just dont see it. I mean the technical difficulties alone would make it hard to imagine anyone trying to do them justice. But the plot, the themes? I mean I have had the same discussion about the later Narnia books. The first ones stand as stories and kids will see them as stories. The last ones are pretty preachy and if the religion is removed from the plot, the plot gets pretty weak. But weak is not non-existant. And the Narnia books are pretty Christian. These books, the religion is the plot, and it is very anti-Christian, anti-established religion, anti-God. With the big G.

Sooo . . . yeah. If anyone else has read these I would love to hear comments. I tried not to tell about the actual plot, and would definitely recommend them as interesting material. Not fantastic in the story department, but certainly ballsy.

Huh

Well this doesn't look nice

A few things

Ok let me see.

Miami was great. Hot and humid and gross, but otherwise great. Especially since we spent most of our time inside. We got in very late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Saturday we helped prepare for the birthday party. Saturday afternoon/evening was the party. Almost everyone except us and Nicole speaks Spanish so Matty got to practice a little and I got to feel like I was in another country. Nicole was sick for most of the day unfortunately. But EJ enjoyed himself it seemed. He got a lot of toys and a few books and some clothes from me. Sunday we got a bit of a tour of Miami. Neither of us had been there before so Nicole and E droe us around and showed us Miami Beach, South Beach, downtown Miami and Coral Gables. It was nice to get a feel for the city a little bit. It is ENORMOUS! I much more enjoy cities like Philly that a more condensed and where people live, work and play in the same place. Monday we took a drive through the Everglades to hunt for gators. We saw a few but the recent rain from Hannah and Gustav flooded a bunch of the road and the swamp and we were there pretty late in the day so most of them were hiding and the drive took several hours longer than expected. That was the only time EJ got cranky at all and really cried. But honestly I think we were all pretty cranky by that point. He is so cute. He looks a lot more like Nicole now. He used to look like a little version of E. He is walking all by himself and can get up from the floor by himself. He still falls when making turns but otherwise is totally on the go. He talks to himself but no one else can understand him. I think he will be talking soon. It will be interesting to see what combination of English and Spanish he speaks first. He also learned "clap" while we were there. So you can tell him to clap and he does. I hope we get down there to see him more often now and at some point maybe see the beach.

Work is a bit on the ridiculous side. One major reasons being that Nina thinks I should graduate in May. Of 2009. Which is a full year earlier than I was hoping for. And she thinks I can have 3 papers done by then. Plus my thesis. I currently have 0. So things are ridiculous and I dont want to talk about it.

I installed 32-bit Vista on my laptop so now I can sync my phone with my computer. Yay!

We have watched recently . . . 4th season of The Office which is fantastic, just finished episode 7. The Namesake which was very good and I was totally able to not think about Harold and Kumar the whole time. Knocked Up which I liked except that she is totally a whiny bitch for most of the movie and not at all happy about having a kid. I still think 40-year Old Virgin is funnier. Son of Rambow, VERY good, highly recommend. Zodiac, also enjoyed but found a bit on the confusing side sometimes. Like they cut scenes to make it shorter but there was necessary information in those scenes that was lost or something. But Jake Gyllenhaal is SO hot it doesnt really matter.

Random things - tried Loie Saturday. Good burgers, totally empty for lunch at 1 on a Saturday. Went to Greenfest yesterday. Was very surprised how extensive it was. Bought a bunch of ChicoBags as presents because I LOVE mine and carry it EVERYWHERE. Thanks Beth! For brunch tried Cantina Dos Segundos in Northern Liberties. Very good, pretty much exactly like the first one. For dinner made the bestest sandwiches on earth. Paninis on Le Bec Fin foccacia with rustico red pepper (a young semi-firm pecorino), black forest smoked turkey, carmelized onions and fresh tomato from the garden. Oh my god! With pepper shooters and garlic stuffed green olives on the side.

My parents are in Greece. They left at 6:30 last night from Boston -> Madrid -> Athens. Then they are leaving in an hour for Kerkyra Island, Corfu. They are going to sail around the Greek Isles for a week with the people whose boat my dad sailed across the Atlantic. Then they have 2 weeks to travel around Greece themselves and they will be back on the 27th. So fucking jealous.

Right, will post more later. I promise!

Miami pics

I posted some of the pictures we took while we were in Miami for EJ (my godson)'s first birthday party over Labor Day on flickr. We are asking for a new camera for Christmas because this one is starting to die. So I apologize for the poor quality (and lack of zoom) of many of the pictures. Enjoy!