It's been so long since I checked in here that really, everything clever I had thought of to say (And who'm I kidding? The clever bar's pretty low.) has long since vanished from my head in a haze of sleep deprivation and wedding planning.
I did, however, want to mention our great trip to New York last month. We were both in town for work, and stayed the weekend -- and to the wonderful Jeffrey and Peyton I say (a) thank you for putting us up, and (b) we need to see you guys more. Oh, and (c) I want that recipe for chicken and green olive tagine.
There were many highlights:
Plus, we found some insanely good fares to New York from Richmond -- so we'll be back. And soon.
June 4, 2008
It's a Helluva Town
March 19, 2008
Your March Madness viewing rules
As I write this, we're but 12 hours away from tipoff of the first round of the greatest three weeks in sports. As with any event of this scope, the millions of fans tuning in will have just about as many superstitions and rituals and quirks.
F'rinstance, I used to pick one snack food and eat only that one while I watched games, and I still won't put a team through to a later round on my brackets until I've filled in all games from the previous round. You probably have your own things, and that's cool: Let your basketball-jones flag fly.
All that said, I think we can all agree on a few basic rules for maximum tournament pleasure. Really, it's just one rule, with a bunch of exceptions.
That rule is:
Always root for the underdog. Upsets -- your Hampton-Iowa States, your Valpo-Ole Misses -- are what makes the tournament the greatest, and in many ways the most American, of all sporting events. We love to see the little guy stick it to the Man -- the little guy in this case being some school with a direction in its name and a home gym that seats 3,500 and the Man being all the big-money, big-conference Programs who dominate the season.
Go by that rule, and you're pretty much set. There are, however, a number of caveats.
Caveat 1: Personal, familial or geographical ties to a particular school may trump the rule. This allows me to root for Texas to make a deep run; my brother attended grad school there and has settled in Austin.
Caveat 2: When both teams in a first-round game are middle-of-the-pack schools from a big conference -- this year's West Virginia-Arizona matchup, which I'll bear witness to Thursday night, is a good example -- the rule is waived. Cheer for whoever you please, or ignore entirely.
Caveat 2.5: Similarly, when two teams from smaller conferences butt heads, you're free to take whichever side you want, since it's a guarantee that at least one mid-major team will make the next round. There are a few of those games this year, and though some of that is the inevitable result of seeding, I kinda wish the selection committee would stop those pairings. We like David-Goliath matchups, not David-David ones.
Caveat 3: It's always OK to root against the teams you hate, regardless of their seeding.
Caveat 4: By the Elite 8 round, when teams seeded 7th or worse are most likely gone, you are free to root for whomever you please -- although hoping for the best possible games in the Final Four is always appreciated.
Corollary 1: Rooting for teams based solely on how you far you've taken them in your bracket is uncool. Unless you're wagering more than $100, just enjoy the ride.
Corollary 1.5: If you're on the verge of winning more than $100, Corollary 1 may be ignored, provided you don't end up also violating Caveat 1. No one likes a fair-weather fan, money or no money.
May the madness be with you. Enjoy.
March 18, 2008
Bacon and chocolate. Who knew?
I wish I could say the past few weeks had been filled with fabulous and wonderful adventures, and that's why we haven't blogged for a while. I suppose I could say that, but then that would be lying (although we did get to this the other night and had a lot of fun).
Because really, we've kinda been hunkered down with work and general late-winter boringness, and just kind of lazy when it comes to this here.
How lazy? We shared a candy bar with bacon in it more than a week ago, and I'm just now getting around to writing about it.
Background: We went to Richmond two weekends ago to celebrate Lisa's birthday (yay!), where we enjoyed a lovely evening in the Shockoe Slip/Tobacco Row historic areas, eating delicious food and staying in a fancy hotel. On our way home we stopped at the awesome candy store For the Love of Chocolate in Carytown. Words can't do it full justice -- the variety and creativity of sweet stuff on display there is kind of staggering, from Chick-O-Sticks to super-exotic chocolate flavored with chile, rosemary and all manner of other things you wouldn't necessarily think about putting into chocolate.
Which brings me to Mo's Bacon Bar, which, as you may be able to see above, is a combination of "applewood smoked bacon, alder wood smoked salt and 'deep milk chocolate.'" We were both a little trepidatious about trying it, but you know what? Turns out bacon and chocolate is pretty darn good (two great tastes that taste great together, as it were).
The smoky bits of fried pork are a nice compliment to the chocolate, which is darker than your average Hershey bar but not into the realm of the serious dark stuff. But it never gets overwhelming (at least not in the mini-size bar we split). Good crunch too.
More excitement to come -- we're going to the first and second rounds of the greatest sporting event ever in D.C. this weekend, and I plan at least one update from there. I have taken days off in the past to watch the first two rounds, and am doing so again this year, only this time I get to see games in person. This Salon piece from 2001 pretty much captures my feelings about the tournament, and I can't wait to experience it in person for the first time in more than 15 years.
Happy bacon, happy bracketing, and remember to pick at least one 12-vs.-5 upset.
January 27, 2008
Surviving a cold, gray Sunday
Sometimes it's just about hangin' out.
Today's recipe:
- Re-runs of America's Next Top Model, Cycle 3
- NBA: Lakers v. Cavaliers
- Frosting the red velvet cupcakes I made yesterday
- Tasting the rum-raisin brownies I also made yesterday
- A Duraflame log (the 3-hour kind) in the fireplace
- laundry (OK, so something got accomplished after all)
- The Sunday Washington Post
- The Sunday New York Times
- Mocking my (possibly now formerly) beloved Joe Jackson for selling out the great "One More Time" for a Taco Bell commercial. Oh, Joe -- really? You break my heart.
- Later: leftovers of the beef and butternut squash stew Rick made the other day
Yeah. I could live this day over and over. Continued ...
December 20, 2007
Flour power
We've been taking in the usual assortment of Christmas goodies the past couple weeks -- a shipment of candy from Lisa's mom in Milwaukee (including the mysterious substance known as fairy food) here, a loaf of bread from my sister-in-law there.
We also have a couple dozen of our own cookies still lying around. But we -- and by "we" I mean mostly Lisa -- have been keeping up our end of the supply chain up as well. I spent much of last weekend in awe of the sheer number of cookies that came out of our kitchen -- enough baked goods to make Mrs. Field go, "Damn, that's a lot of cookies."
After the jump, a rundown.
These numbers are approximate, but suffice to say that we completely covered the dining room table with plates and boxes of cookies and nuts. To wit:
7 dozen chocolate mint cookies
7 dozen pepperming sugar cookies
6 dozen oatmeal-white chocolate-cranberry
6 dozen oatmeal-pistachio-cranberry-apricot
5 (or maybe 6) dozen peanut butter Kiss cookies
4 pounds or so Union Square spiced nuts
And, oh yeah, 3 pounds or so of sugared pecans.
I really wish I'd taken a picture of the dining room table. Bad blogger. But to those of you who got them, hope you like them. I think they're pretty darn good.
November 13, 2007
This is what joy looks like
This is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Monday night in Washington, DC. The house lights are up, they're chugging through Born to Run, and tens of thousands of people -- including a couple of shirtless guys we saw jigging down on the floor -- are singing along at the tops of their lungs.
COOL.
We caught both the Sunday and Monday shows in DC -- and it was spectacular. These were my 19th and 20th shows, Rick's first and second. Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't even want to think about the things I could have done or the trips to Europe I could have taken if I hadn't spent the cash on Bruce Springsteen. But you know what? I really don't care.
Regardless of where you stand on the guy -- whether, like me, his rear end hung on the wall over your bed when you were in junior high, or you've thought the man-of-the-people thing has worn thin -- when you're there it's hard to deny that it's one hell of a show. The guy's 58 years old, and he was jumping up and down at the end of the 2-hour-and-20-minute set in a way that had me exhausted just looking at him. I've seen him from the back of football arenas and from the front row, mashed up against the stage, and it's safe to say I've never seen anyone play a room quite like him. Famously anti-war, he marked Veterans Day here in DC -- and last night he brought some wounded vets from Walter Reed to the show. Talk about altering the dynamic in a basketball arena.
The new album's not easy -- it's filled with familiar imagery of people struggling and disillusioned, trying to live decent, honorable lives in the face of bitter disappointment and not knowing which end is up. But it's also about making connections and finding meaning in each other -- nothing's ever perfect, but in the end we're all we've got. The songs are also catchy, filled with pop hooks, and taken as a whole, the thing rocks.
And live, you can't help but walk away feeling a little bit better connected to humanity. I took my parents to see Springsteen a few years back -- and bought them tickets to see him a couple of weeks ago in Chicago as a Christmas present -- and it sounds loony, but I seriously think it brought us closer. I may drive them up a wall, but now at least we can talk about Bruce Springsteen. (Incidentally, Mom, there's a rumor he's coming to Milwaukee in March -- so Happy Birthday.)
Do I sound like a sermonizing goofball? Yeah. Is the crowd at a Springsteen show whiter than any you'll see outside a standard-issue NHL game? Yes. Have I spent more time than I care to admit perusing the setlists online and trying to figure out what he's going to play in the rotating song spots (2, 7, 11, 12, 13, and the second song of the encore, by the way)? Definitely. Do I do these things furtively? Hell no. Embarrassed? Sure. Ashamed? Never.
Tramps like us...
November 7, 2007
Things I'm liking right now
Bits and pieces of things and stuff that are good and cool:
This list of the most terrifyingly inspirational songs of the '80s. Of the "You're the Best" song from Karate Kid, the author has this to say: "It is completely acceptable to do any damn thing you want to this song. Whatever it is you’re about to do, Joe Esposito took seven weeks out of his life back in the '80s to write a little ditty about just how badass you are at it." Well, yeah.
Straight Cash, Homey -- a collection of unfortunate jersey choices by sports fans across this great nation.
The awesome birthday present I got from Lisa, which includes some of the greatest screwball comedy of all time.
Season three of Bones. I don't know if it'll end up in the pantheon of great shows, but the folks there seem to nail the balance of character development and crime procedural better than just about anyone at the moment.
Seasonal weather. Yeah, I freaked out a little when I heard the local radio folks drop the phrase "wind chill" this week, but the leaves are pretty, the air is crisp and I like wearing long-sleeve T-shirts. Plus, I got a new winter coat a couple weeks ago, so I'm set.
Friends preparing to have children.
Pie. But really, who doesn't like pie?
