Ripped from the headlines

I've said it before and I'll say it again...SVU is the Cadillac of Law & Orders. Sex offenders, child molesters, stories dragged straight from the frong pages. C'mon what's not to love?

My favorite tv detective and yours, 2006 Emmy winner Mariska Hargitay.

When I dip, you dip, we dip

The conclusion to a fortnight of culinary delight ended in fabulous manner. A lovely dinner for two, fondue-style courtesy of the good folks at the Wine Cellar.

The evening's tasting menu as follows:

Nothing says fondue like the classic cheese. A molten blend of Gruyere and Emmental melted with wine, kirsch, garlic and herbs. Accompianed with bread squares and roasted potatoes. A delectable open-faced seafood ravioli, stuffed with shrimp, crabmeat and scallops, finished with a spicy tomato cream sauce, was a satisfying entree. And of course the chocolate fondue for dessert, but with a twist, in the form of caramel and chopped almonds.

Dinner was fabulous. Our not-hetero waiter was perfect, attentive, knowledgable and brought us extra cookies and fresh fruit during dessert. And the "Oh my god, I can't believe I paid that much for a stinkin' bottle of wine" lived up to it's price billing.

Snakes in a can!

Sometimes a night of margaritas and FREE tacos is the perfect answer to a week of being so busy/stressed out of my mind at work. Yup, it's one of those weeks. It's been so busy that I've had to go into triage mode and do some serious prioritizing.

Sayanora daily hourly tweaking to my fantasy baseball team. So long posting rambling missives on the message board. And kiss actually eating lunch not at my lunch goodbye.

So what's been going you ask? Well this is what I get for forgoing a career of chopping timber and instead going into copywriting. Projects upon projects piling up. The thing is they are pretty fun things, actually. Going to be a pretty high-profile website and PR launch. Heck I might even finagle a trip to NYC for the launch of the thing. But deadlines and my high-strung AE have created quite the bit of artificial stress. And I'm still figuring out how to deal with that. I'm not really a turn to the bottle kind of guy and I've given up

Anyways, today's daily humorous anecdote:
My buddy Sugs comes up to me and tells me I'm looking pretty haggard. "Yeah, been pretty stressed out by this project. Yada yada." When my other co-worker suggests the answer to my problem is some crack cocaine. Without even looking I take the can she hands me and twist off the lid when...POW SNAKES IN A CAN.

God, the oldest trick in the book and I fell for it. But everyone laughed and I smiled, so I felt better. Mission accomplished. Figure I'll get around to seeing the movie this week.

Dave Chappelle @ Agganis

High comedy all around!

Dave was right, this was the most amount of black people I've ever seen crammed into a hockey arena in my life.

It's a boy!

And the end to another wonderful Birthday Extravaganza...

Where to begin? Well for starters, I'm on the other side of 20 finally. Gone are the days of, "I'm drunk!" as my go to excuse for life's mishaps, replaced by "dammit I pay my taxes." Ah adulthood. What am I saying? I had an awesome weekend 26 years be damned.

Friday was the big day and I was planning on taking the day off, but it was the company's annual summer outing and I wasn't using a vacation day when we were going to be spending a day playing video games and eating food. And while driving out to Worcester was a drag, all the comped game cards was muy excellente. I schooled some people in air hockey, played some random DDR-knockoff (asked if I was any good, my response was, "I am Asian", lost a week's pay playing Golden Tee and fretted away twelve "$" trying to win this oingo-boingo game of pure luck/skill, but it was all for a good cause, namely my friend's three kids who he was trying to win prizes for. Definitely more fun than I could ever have imagined.

Later that night, after my first powernap as a 26-year old and a plate of my all-time favorite tofu, I was off to celebrate in style: with good friends and copious amounts of alcohol. Vodka to be precise. Ah the Good Life... (much blurriness)

Saturday was Gov. Romney's personal present to me, in the form of a Tax Free Weekend. More on my present to myself (with much help from mom and dad) shortly. And what's a Birthday Weekend Extravaganza without a little bit of food and entertainment? Grilled some steaks and off to Harbor Lights Fleet Bank of America Pavillon for Guster. A gorgeous night by the harbor, marred only by the horrendous opening act.

And talk about being young at heart, body and soul. Sunday I was up to good old Portsmouth, NH for a jolly good time at New England's largest water park. Water slides, lazy rivers, sun, short lines, packed sandwiches, Band-Aids galore: I really had some fun. Had some fun. (Seriously, it was awesome.) I hadn't been up to Portsmouth in quite some time, but it remains a pretty cool city (despite all the white people.) Nice little seaport town with some quality eats.

I managed to take that much-needed day-off Monday instead, just in time for Restaurant Week. (Make reservations now!) Let me just say that the burger at Smith & Wollensky is to die for. Honestly, thank you whatever sacred cow had to go through the Jungle treatment to end up grilled to a perfect, just how I asked medium, layered with sharp Vermont cheddar, some quality LTO and settled atop an amazing suprisingly-sweet brioche bun. BEST BURGER I'VE EVER HAD.

So tomorrow it's back to work, but not before I finish the recap to 2006's Birthday Extravaganza on my new baby. 13.3". 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo. 512MB memory. SuperDrive. And courtesy of my "student discount" 10% off and a FREE nano to boot!

I'm finally cool. I heart you MacBook.

Over...and out

2 of 3 to TB and 2 in a row to swept by KC. Anyway you spell, it the season for all intent's and purpose is D U N for the Sox.

Julia Stiles can suck my left nut or Much Ado About Nothing

If there’s one thing that I’m the Zen-master flex at it’s overreacting to situations. Anyone who even remotely knows me knows this. From screaming like a teenage girl when spooked to bleeding ulcers at a moment’s notice, I stress with the best of them.

So besides the normal issues attributed with work, money, work, women, etc, my latest unnatural stressor had to do with my current living situation. Or should I say my perceived current living situation.

I’ve been living the blissful Three’s Company lifestyle for quite some time but the little Blonde fled to different waters and replacing her, the new roommate, el Capitan. With el Capitan in tow, the new lease/rent increase was sure to follow. And it did.

Long story short, all the discussions the Jule and I had about sticking it out in the apartment almost came to an end. We signed the lease and through some misguided intel and much teeth-gnashing I thought she was trying to run an end around and move in with her boyfriend, leaving el Capitan and yours truly high and dry on the hook for a year’s rent or with a less-than-desirable fill-in on a moment’s notice.

The much-hyped Roommate Sit-in did not live up to it’s billing (and for the best). El Capitan ended up being a no-show instead drinking his day away on the other side of the river and the Jule calling off the move out. I think she realized, that we’ve got a pretty sweet deal in terms of rent/location/set-up, her boyfriend can barely manage to eat solid foods, let alone provide for her expensive little habit and that moving out of the QuanDome is just too much to bear.

So yeah, I overreacted just a bit and caused some unnecessary grief in the process. Whatever. She was still this close to fleeing, a good deal on craigslist here or a good deal there and it would have been a different story.

Either way, I’m getting to old for this shit (living with other humans that I do not planning on being intimate with) and the old adage rings true: "You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t drown ‘em in a duffle bag."

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach

You know I'd make a pretty bad private eye. If I can't find the person/clue/lead I'm looking for in the top ten google searches I'm pretty much giving up.

So if anyone can find me a picture of one Miss Claire Hoffman, writer for the LA Times, I'd be much obliged.

Here's her story on Girls Gone Wild/sleeze magnate, Joe Francis.