Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Friday, December 21, 2007
Funny. Apparently Joe unlocked all the old expired Clan Lord accounts, so you can fire up your old characters if you can remember your password. I couldn't, but the CL_Prefs file stores it in plaintext, and I had an old copy of that. Humbaba logged in at lunch today, spent 50 ranks on Regia, failed the 6th circle fighter test (again), met up with Math, went on a rescue with Lorikeet to GI (some newer island), had a kegger in town square, fell to drink, and then did a Queen's Chamber run through the myrm hive. Pretty funny, it's been two years since I last played. Thursday, December 20, 2007
B has a friend moving to DC soon, so she went out to dinner with a group of her friends last night to say goodbye. The kids and I had leftovers for dinner, then we fired up our DVD of "The Incredibles", which I hadn't seen in two years. Excellent movie, so well done. The kids had a blast, Harry thought he was scared of this movie but he did fine. I've now finished the first two Heinlein Juveniles, "Rocket Ship Galileo" and "Space Cadet". If I read either of these as a kid, it was well over 25 years ago and I have zero memory of either, so it's possible I missed them. Both are good solid scifi of the period, Heinlein seriously underestimated the costs and difficulty of getting into orbit, and failed to predict that computers would get smaller, faster, and cheaper. The spaceship's autopilots use custom-cut mechanical 3d cams for software. I have a hard time reading the dialog without hearing them in a 1950s "Golly" Wally Cleaver voice. Next up is "The Red Planet". Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Yesterday was my work christmas party. It's held in the afternoon, and normally they have some catered food and some beer and wine. This year they replaced the tray of sushi with an actual sushi chef and sushi bar. Woooo! It was awesome, I ended up having 3 or 4 plates of it. Watched some 30 Rock last night, laughed my ass off. Watching a Deadwood as well, laughed even harder. Damn I love that show. Heh. A while back I'd set B up with Glen Cook's "Garrett, PI" series. She liked them quite a bit, but we're missing one of them. She was looking for something to read yesterday and decided she try some of my other Glen Cook stuff, grabbing "The Black Company". I'm still laughing. That would kick SO much ass if she liked it. Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Last night was the december meeting of my investing drinking club. (D'oh! I was supposed to invite WOPR! D'oh!) We don't do any business at the december meeting, just meet at a bar and drink and socialize. This year the gang picked the Ed's Kort Haus tavern over in Phinney Ridge. It's a dive bar with it's claim to fame being you can get burgers made from many exotic meats. Sadly, I had forgotten about the meeting until B got home at 7pm and asked why was I still home? D'oh! I'd also already eaten, so that shot down my debate between a camel burger (for Gulf War old time's sake) or a seasonally-appropriate reindeer burger. They've got over a dozen exotic meats. Anyway, we watched Monday Night Football (once again, the Vikings running backs run wild through the holes that Steve Hutchenson opens, and the Seahawks running game is non-existant since he left) and afterwards we played Big Buck Hunter, where I shot more critters than NotMe but he squeaked out a win on points because I didn't know how the game worked the first two rounds. Afterwards we went down to Sully's Snow Goose Saloon, since the $9 pitchers at the Kort Haus were "too expensive". (Sully's charges a much more reasonable $13 per pitcher...) There we sat next to the fireplace and played a few rounds of cribbage. My team won the first round, got to 120 before losing the second round, and nearly skunked them the third tie-breaking round. Woo! The guys were teasing me for only having a few half-pints off their pitcher, but I explained that I was still sick and feeling like crap, but came anyway, and they were pretty happy with that. When I got back to my truck at 11pm, the battery gave up the ghost. It was cold, and the start up the street to drive 7 blocks to the next bar wasn't enough to recharge it. I *knew* I needed to replace that damn battery, it's the original, 8 years old now, at least a few years past a reasonable life span. I called AAA and waited. Luckily I had a streetlight for illumination and one of my friends had given me a Seattle magazine with an article on private schools in Seattle to give to a poker buddy who didn't come to the meeting, so I had something to read, including an interesting article on the UW President's mansion restoration. AAA took about 15 minutes to get there, I got a jump and went home to bed. Monday, December 17, 2007
The weisswurst breakfast was excellent. They are damn tasty, let me tell you. I was the only one who would suck the sausage out of the casing, everyong else cut the casing off and ate with a fork. Bah! The Seahawks sucked bigtime. Uff-da. After the game WOPR, El Parquito and I played Guitar Hero III for an hour, El Parquito requiring the "lefty flip" preference. I'm left handed at writing, but I do *everything* else right handed. I call myself spastic-handed. We had my youngest brother Kurt and his girlfriend Kari over for dinner last night, and afterwards we all started playing GHIII as well. She's got GH 2 for her Xbox360, so it was fun for them to have new songs to play. Sunday, December 16, 2007
Last night B and I got to go on a date, and we went to see "I Am Legend". Cool movie. B wanted to see it because she loved Will Smith, and I've wanted to see it since it was Ridley Scott and Arnold Schwartzenegger back in 1993. A post-apocalyptic movie with zombies? What's not to like? They did a pretty good job with it. I think Smith deserves Best Actor, he did phenomenal. Of course, I've always been impressed with him, how he turned a singing career into a comedy career, then made the leap to action movie star, the dude's got talent and charisma coming out his pores. After we got home we watched some more 30 Rock. Holy crap, after the first 4 episodes that show is seriously funny. Saturday, December 15, 2007
Well, my Bavarian readers worked me into a frenzy about those canned weissworsts, and Harald even emailed me this morning to say that he could ship me some real weisswurst from Munich, it had worked well for his sister in Afghanistan. A quick Google search of "seattle weisswurst" led me to the Bavarian Meat Delicatessen down in Pike Place Market, where they make fresh weisswurst daily. Wooo! First stop was to call up El Parquito's wife and ask if she liked weisswurst. (Her mom is german, a bunch of her family still live there, but it's northern baltic germany, not Bavaria) She was like, "Hell yeah!" (or should I say, "das ist gut!") I also figured out that the Seahawk game tomorrow is on the east coast, so kickoff will be 10am. Perfect, looks like I'm throwing a traditional bavarian breakfast tomorrow. I loaded up the kids and off we went downtown. It being 10 days until Christmas, parking was a bitch, but we found a spot, and eventually threaded the maze that is the Pike Place Market and found the Bavarian Meat Deli. A couple of german ladies run the place, and they set me up with a dozen fresh weisswurst and a jar of Handlmaier's sweet bavarian mustard. They also told me where the bavarian bakery is in town, it's actually only a few miles from my house at 65th and ravenna, Morning Star Bakery. We went back through the market, stopping at Beechers for some fresh cheese curds (love those curds!) and at one of the produce vendors for a half pint of raspberries (greenhouse, I guess). We tried waiting a few minutes to see the guys toss some salmon around at the world famous Pike Place Fish Market, but we didn't have time since I had to get Isabel back at 1:30pm for her manicure with B. (They're going to see the Nutcracker tomorrow and need fancy painted nails). After we got Isabel back I had to wait a bit to take a phone call from my sister-in-law, she wanted some single malt whisky advice for a christmas present. I wouldn't mention this but my brother doesn't even use email, let alone read blogs, so the cat isn't out of the bag. She'd gone to some really nice liquor store in Coeur D'alene, ID, since the liquor stores in Spokane are all state-run and have a poor scotch selection. She got him the Ardbeg 10 and the Ardbeg Uigeadail. I don't have the Uigeadail myself, but it's seriously delicious. Once that phone call was out of the way, Harry and I loaded up in the truck and headed over to the bakery. They only had 3 pretzels left, but he was baking more, so we sat at a table and ate two of them, then once they were ready we bought 9 more for our breakfast tomorrow. Holy smokes these suckers are good. I've driven past this bakery dozens of times but never noticed it. (It's even got huge pretzels on the awning, geez). Super tasty. Anyway, a Bavarian breakfast awaits me tomorrow, I only have to pick up some tasty german beers tonight. WOOOOO! Friday, December 14, 2007
Well, I finished re-reading The Number of the Beast by Heinlein. The plot is a bit discombobulated, and then near the end it becomes a second ending to "Time Enough for Love", and the last chapter is just a complete abortion. Even as a relatively hard-core Heinlein fan, I'm not sure I now want to re-read "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" and "To Sail Beyond the Sunset". I think I'd rather re-read the Heinlein Juveniles. Last night we had poker for the first time in too many weeks, and one of the original poker guys, Luke Thayer, has moved back to Seattle and will be re-joining us. Wooo! Thursday, December 13, 2007
Wooo! When my friend Todd was here last weekend, he brought me a present from Munich: Two cans of weisswurst. Yep, the Bavarian white breakfast sausage. I've never seen it in a can before, but I'm willing to give it a try. Now I just need some tasty pretzels to go with it, I've got sweet mustard and beer. Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Ugh. Spent the day in bed sick and achey, mostly sleeping, occasionally watching TV, reading, or playing World of Warcraft. Speaking of WoW, a few weeks ago during a server reboot it showed me what realms I have characters on. Normally I play on Bonechewer, but my first character was on the Stormrage server, a level 20 hunter I'd not played in over a year. Last night I logged onto Stormrage, fired up that character, sold off all his possessions, and found the nearest Hunter in level in the Barrens and offered the 11.7 gold that was his net worth. That person was pleasantly surprised. I figure there's no point in letting those assets go to waste, might as well give them to someone before I delete that character. Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Last night B and I watched the first disk of season 2 of "Deadwood". Fun show. I spent the day with that "pre-cold" feeling, and woke up achy and feeling like crap. Super. Thanks, kids, aka "mobile plague vectors". Monday, December 10, 2007
Man, when Seahawks are in sync, they're so good it's scary. Almost gives one hope, but a SuperBowl run would have to go through both Green Bay at Lambeau, and Dallas at Texas Stadium. In WOPR's words, if they make the SuperBowl they'll have earned it. It was nice to see both the offense and defense playing at such a high level. I finished Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love" and have moved on to "The Number of the Beast". TEfL is OK, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone but a die-hard Heinlein fan. I haven't read "The Number of the Beast" since it came out when I was in the 8th grade and got it in hardback from the library. Sunday, December 09, 2007
Theory: Having only one of each kind of drink makes you immune to hangovers. Testing methodogy: Well, I failed right off by having 2 gin martinis, 4 beers, two scotches, a shot of Ouzo, a glass of red wine ("add some red wine, you'll feel fine"), and two glasses of port. Let's just get something straight: That's too much god-damned booze for one night. I was sick as a dog this morning, spent until noon trying not to hurl until B gave me an anti-nausea pill, thank glub. We had our formal Christmas party last night, and I think it was a big success. 30 guests, I hired one of my student helpers to tend bar, I wore my tux, people had a great time, all the food got eaten, and it lasted until almost 2am. The best story was from a couple who had a tree crush their house last year during the huge windstorm. They were cleaning up afterwards before moving out into an apartment while it's being rebuilt, and found a bottle of vodka with 2 shots in it. She doesn't like to drink, having only started a year or so ago, but likes being drunk. With a little web searching, he came up with the brilliant idea of giving her a vodka enema. She said she was drunk off her ass (ha ha) in no time, but he'd failed to read the instructions about diluting it, because it very quickly became very very burny painful. I was dying while she's telling us the "vodka up the butt" story. Destined to be a true classic. Saturday, December 08, 2007
NotMe was right, the first four episodes of "30 Rock" are pretty lame, but it gets better after that. I'm not sure I'd have kept watching it originally after those four. Isabel has been having a blast with a pad of "Mad Libs Junior", she thinks they're "totally HILARIOUS". Last night B and I watched SuperBad last night. It was pretty funny and pretty crazy, but B didn't think much of it. Heh. I can't stop saying "McLovin". Thursday, December 06, 2007
My good friend Todd from back in college, I went to his wedding in Germany last May, came to town for work. B and I picked him up from the airport around 10:30pm last night, and he and I were up to 1am chatting. He was a bit busy in Germany what with getting married and all. I can't believe that I-5 is *still* closed due to flooding. Dang. Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Well, it looks like Ty Willingham gets another year as head coach of the Huskies. I was hoping that he'd be fired and replaced with Jim Mora, Jr, but that didn't happen. I'd lost all respect for him after last year's Stanford debacle and the lousy results this year. If the cupboard is bare, recruit to fill those gaps. There is little excuse for playing a true freshman (high school running back) in the secondary. He may be awesome someday, but he could have used a redshirt year at minimum. Last night B and I watched the pilot to "30 Rock". Man I hope it gets better than that. Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Holy crap. Seattle got 4" of rain yesterday. It was coming down at 1cm/hr for almost half the day. Uff-da. The switchback road down from Crown Hill to Golden Gardens park washed out, not due to be fixed until spring. Fortunately no flooding at my house. Last night I decorated the Christmas tree. I was alone with the kids since B went to get a pedicure (which I call a Foot Festival) with a friend. I wanted to get some royal purple garland to go with the gold garland I had, so I loaded up the kids and drove to Display and Costume since I figured they'd have the best chance. No such luck, but they did have a purple/gold mixed garland. Still, not the same thing. We got home and I got the garland and bead on, then the kids helped me put ornaments on. Not quite what I was imagining, but a fine looking tree. It'll do. B and I watched the two-part Christmas episode of "The Closer". Man, that show has almost lost me. I loved the first season, and the second season was fine, but now every time they want to advance the plot drives me crazy, since the main character is so damn annoying. I have zero idea why her fiancee puts up with her in any way, but then I'm scared of psycho women. Some people thrive on drama relationships. The criminal investigation parts are usually good, and the interrogations are what makes the show. Tomorrow is the 74th anniversary of the 21st Amendment, the repeal of Prohibition. Remember to hoist one in thanks! Monday, December 03, 2007
I swear the Seahawks are trying to kill Coach Holmgren off with a heart attack with these last-second wins. Well, 4 wins in a row gives a comfortable 8-4, with a two-game lead over Arizona. If we can beat them this sunday we'll make the playoffs for a 1 and done. Ooooo! I get to go to the Dec 23rd game vs the Ravens. Yesterday we picked out our Christmas tree. Since I apparently bitch every year about our tree not being gaudy enough, I get to decorate it all by myself this year. (Cue evil cackle...) I'll try to work on that tonight. I picked a smaller tree than the monster from last year, I wanted one that didn't spread out to 10' diameter taking up a quarter of the living room. It's nice, but about a foot shorter than I wanted. The tree lot stretches the definition of 9-10'. Last night we had some friends over for dinner, B made her seafood pasta dish. She wanted it to have crab but not shrimp, since Peggy is allergic to having two seafoods at once (??? still not too sure how that's possible), but I bought a whole Dungy as well as a pound of cooked shrimp, figuring I could just add the shrimp to mine manually. I bought the crab whole since it's $35/lb for shelled meat vs $15 for a whole 2lb crab with a pound of meat. I kept the other $20 for beer money, it was worth the 20 minutes to de-meat that crabbie. Sunday, December 02, 2007
Ooooo! My new baby came in. I picked up the M-4 carbine that I mentioned in my Nov 10th post, and man oh man is it a beauty. They described it as externally beat up, but this thing looks brand spanking new inside and out. As a test, I just field-stripped it with my eyes closed. Yep, the skills practiced so often in boot camp and for six years afterwards are still there. Now I need to buy a carrying handle for it, a laser sight, a bayonet, a bipod, some magazines, and a case of 5.56 ammo. Gah. My Huskies blew a 21 point lead to lose to Hawai'i last night. It sucks not having any defense, and every time Locker threw deep it went sailing wide, which cost us a down and inevitably lead to a punt. In my dreams the UW President, Mark Emmert, would call up Jim Mora, Jr and see if he's interested for something we can swing. If so, fire Willingham, hire Mora. If Mora wants the Seahawk job, keep Willingham but fire the defensive coordinator, Kent Baer. I'd also vote for firing the Athletic Director for not stepping up. I seriously think a good coach would have gotten us to bottom-tier bowl games each of the last two years instead of always blowing halftime leads. B went to see the Transiberian Orchestra last night with her mom and sister, while I stayed home to watch the kids and my Huskies. She had a blast. Saturday, December 01, 2007
It snowed today, a few inches. The kids had a blast playing in the slush, making a slushman and slush angels. They ended up pretty cold and wet. I let Harry warm his cold hands on my bald head. Last night B and I were taken out to dinner by some friends who I'd given Husky football tickets to. We had a good time, going to Palomino, then afterwards to Vons for more drinks. At Vons I ordered their largest Maritime Pacific Imperial IPA, but I forgot that in addition to the pint and the 22oz tankard, they have a 36oz "personal pitcher". Uff-da. Maybe a little more beer than I need on top of half a bottle of wine. I was a tad bit hung over this morning. |
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