Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
I blink, and it's Monday.
I'm told that I had a weekend the last two days, but it went by quite simply too fast for me to remember/enjoy it. A few highlights:
Friday night - Celtics game: I actually left my house to watch the first half at Rat's Pizza. This isn't the first time I've done this in the last few years, but it is the first time there's been anyone else there with the intention of watching the game. Welcome aboard my bandwagon hopping friends, there's room for all of us. Follower. The game was great, and did nothing to dilute my excitement about this season, which is bordering on the absurd right now.
Late Friday night - Hour long conversation with Hendo rave about the Celtics and how they may never lose a game, and how if possible we would both have Kevin Garnett's babies. In a normal, hetero-sexual man crush sort of way, of course.
Saturday - Portland Brew fest, or whatever the hell it's called: I seriously want to sit down with the people who organize this event and talk to them about some logistics. Like, why not do this, say, outside? Or in a building big enough so that you have a little room between booths? I mean, I like beer and all, but a three hour wait in line punctuated by beers is a bit much. (Good beer and good company or not) Whatever the case, some good beers were tasted, mainly beers that I was already familiar with, but also a few newbies as well. My top newbies were Kennebunkport Brewing Companies Taint Town Ale, and Sheepscot Brewing's Brown Ale. The worst, bar none, was that pile of organic goo from Peak Organic Brewing, which tasted like flat mildly hoppy water.
Sunday - Time Change: Nothing better than that extra hour of sleep, especially when you didn't know it was coming. Fucking right Daylight Savings Time, in the fall I don't hate you. Come spring time you can go to hell.
Sunday - Breakfast: Since I wasn't suffering from a debilitating hangover, I was able to enjoy a delicious Eggs Benny at the Port Hole. Good stuff.
Sunday - dogpark: Why Orono doesn't have a dogpark baffles me. And angers me. Anyways, since we were in the land of Port, we took the dog face to the dog park, and for once she wasn't the worst behaved dog. She may not have even been in the top five. In fact, even with mud all over the place, she somehow restrained herself from rolling around in any poop/mud mixtures. We were very proud.
Sunday - shopping times: The wifey and I had some gift certificate shopping to do, courtesy of the wedding. So we shopped around at LeRoux's in Portland, and walked away with a pasta making attachment for the Cuisanart. (Thank you Joe T.) We also hit Freeport on the way back up north. Highlight of this part was the wine and cheese store, where we picked up a Pinotage from South Africa, a Cab. Sav. from Chile, some Genova Salami, and some 5-yr aged Cheddar. The cheese was so good that I actually just dropped a wee bit of drool on the keyboard.
Sunday afternoon sports: Unthinkably enough, the Celtics were actually being broadcast on Sports talk radio, so I got to listen to that on the ride home, and got home in time to watch the 4th quarter, and most of the overtime. Comcast then decided to cut out their video feed with a few minutes left, but I was able to sort of hear Ray Allen hit a game-winning three to make the Celtics 2-0. I then switched to the Pat's/Colts game, which actually, rarely, lived up to the billing of a big game. While I'm glad the Pat's won, I'm more glad that there was actually a fun game to watch this year. I didn't see anything to convince me that either team was better than the other, and I still believe that they will both be in the AFC finals.
Friday night - Celtics game: I actually left my house to watch the first half at Rat's Pizza. This isn't the first time I've done this in the last few years, but it is the first time there's been anyone else there with the intention of watching the game. Welcome aboard my bandwagon hopping friends, there's room for all of us. Follower. The game was great, and did nothing to dilute my excitement about this season, which is bordering on the absurd right now.
Late Friday night - Hour long conversation with Hendo rave about the Celtics and how they may never lose a game, and how if possible we would both have Kevin Garnett's babies. In a normal, hetero-sexual man crush sort of way, of course.
Saturday - Portland Brew fest, or whatever the hell it's called: I seriously want to sit down with the people who organize this event and talk to them about some logistics. Like, why not do this, say, outside? Or in a building big enough so that you have a little room between booths? I mean, I like beer and all, but a three hour wait in line punctuated by beers is a bit much. (Good beer and good company or not) Whatever the case, some good beers were tasted, mainly beers that I was already familiar with, but also a few newbies as well. My top newbies were Kennebunkport Brewing Companies Taint Town Ale, and Sheepscot Brewing's Brown Ale. The worst, bar none, was that pile of organic goo from Peak Organic Brewing, which tasted like flat mildly hoppy water.
Sunday - Time Change: Nothing better than that extra hour of sleep, especially when you didn't know it was coming. Fucking right Daylight Savings Time, in the fall I don't hate you. Come spring time you can go to hell.
Sunday - Breakfast: Since I wasn't suffering from a debilitating hangover, I was able to enjoy a delicious Eggs Benny at the Port Hole. Good stuff.
Sunday - dogpark: Why Orono doesn't have a dogpark baffles me. And angers me. Anyways, since we were in the land of Port, we took the dog face to the dog park, and for once she wasn't the worst behaved dog. She may not have even been in the top five. In fact, even with mud all over the place, she somehow restrained herself from rolling around in any poop/mud mixtures. We were very proud.
Sunday - shopping times: The wifey and I had some gift certificate shopping to do, courtesy of the wedding. So we shopped around at LeRoux's in Portland, and walked away with a pasta making attachment for the Cuisanart. (Thank you Joe T.) We also hit Freeport on the way back up north. Highlight of this part was the wine and cheese store, where we picked up a Pinotage from South Africa, a Cab. Sav. from Chile, some Genova Salami, and some 5-yr aged Cheddar. The cheese was so good that I actually just dropped a wee bit of drool on the keyboard.
Sunday afternoon sports: Unthinkably enough, the Celtics were actually being broadcast on Sports talk radio, so I got to listen to that on the ride home, and got home in time to watch the 4th quarter, and most of the overtime. Comcast then decided to cut out their video feed with a few minutes left, but I was able to sort of hear Ray Allen hit a game-winning three to make the Celtics 2-0. I then switched to the Pat's/Colts game, which actually, rarely, lived up to the billing of a big game. While I'm glad the Pat's won, I'm more glad that there was actually a fun game to watch this year. I didn't see anything to convince me that either team was better than the other, and I still believe that they will both be in the AFC finals.
Friday, November 02, 2007
It's (not) a hard life after all
Happy Friday My People. It was a long time coming this week, but it's here, so enjoy your weekends. Going to the Portland Brewer's Fest this weekend, or whatever the hell it's called. I'm a bit scared of the crowds, but I'm more scared of the wrath of Liz and Major if we don't go.
---
Read an interesting book yesterday, an imperfect and yet fascinating book that I can't quite seem to clear out of my mind today. Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, and it is worthy of that, I suppose. Roughly, the book is about a small war-torn island near Australia, as seen through the eyes of a 13 year old girl named Matilda. Her mother comes from the hard-line religious school of thought, and her teacher is an agnostic/athiest white man who over the course of the novel uses Great Expectations by Charles Dickens as his core curriculum. The rough outline of the plot concerns Matilda's going back and forth between believing her mother and her teacher, all the while struggling to live in a harsh environment. In many ways, this book works, but only up to a certain point, a little over mid-way through the plot. At this point, abruptly, in the middle of the book, the plot takes a gruesomely violent turn. From this point on, everything that happens is colored by the violence Matilda has seen.
In some ways, what this book is really about is how people can identify with great writing, no matter what their life experiences are like. It's also about how two good people can be correct about opposite ends of an argument. I do wish the author had made a couple of different decisions, and I don't think some of the way the violence is described works very well.
Like I said, this is far from a perfect book. It did suck me in and carry me along, and I don't think I will forget it soon. (It's also fairly short, which didn't hurt. I'd rather have a book leave me wanting more, than have it carry on too long.)
---
Big plans tonight for this guy. Gonna go home from work, take the pooch for a long walk, and clean up around the house. Once the chores are taken care of, I'm going to crack upon a book, crank some music, and drink some wine and read for a while. Come 7:30, I'm going to tune in to ESPN to check out my new-look Celtics play their first game of the season against the Wizards and Gilbert Arenas. I assume I will fall asleep on the couch by nine. Good times, good times.
---
Read an interesting book yesterday, an imperfect and yet fascinating book that I can't quite seem to clear out of my mind today. Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, and it is worthy of that, I suppose. Roughly, the book is about a small war-torn island near Australia, as seen through the eyes of a 13 year old girl named Matilda. Her mother comes from the hard-line religious school of thought, and her teacher is an agnostic/athiest white man who over the course of the novel uses Great Expectations by Charles Dickens as his core curriculum. The rough outline of the plot concerns Matilda's going back and forth between believing her mother and her teacher, all the while struggling to live in a harsh environment. In many ways, this book works, but only up to a certain point, a little over mid-way through the plot. At this point, abruptly, in the middle of the book, the plot takes a gruesomely violent turn. From this point on, everything that happens is colored by the violence Matilda has seen.
In some ways, what this book is really about is how people can identify with great writing, no matter what their life experiences are like. It's also about how two good people can be correct about opposite ends of an argument. I do wish the author had made a couple of different decisions, and I don't think some of the way the violence is described works very well.
Like I said, this is far from a perfect book. It did suck me in and carry me along, and I don't think I will forget it soon. (It's also fairly short, which didn't hurt. I'd rather have a book leave me wanting more, than have it carry on too long.)
---
Big plans tonight for this guy. Gonna go home from work, take the pooch for a long walk, and clean up around the house. Once the chores are taken care of, I'm going to crack upon a book, crank some music, and drink some wine and read for a while. Come 7:30, I'm going to tune in to ESPN to check out my new-look Celtics play their first game of the season against the Wizards and Gilbert Arenas. I assume I will fall asleep on the couch by nine. Good times, good times.
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