Who here has been to the Lebanese Taverna?

If you have, have you had their garlic sauce?

If you have had their garlic sauce, do you have any idea how they make it?

Because I need to mainline it into my face.

I got some skyr at whole foods today. I was trying to figure out what it was (if that's not the most not revealing "about" page...) but so far the only thing that I can think of is this...

( calling 1985... )

I took advantage of the 3-day weekend as a time to take a trip south and visit my hometown. I was inspired by the fact that an old friend from high school who is now living in CA would be back home for a family reunion so it was great timing. Jack, being a sweetheart, came along.( the whole weekend stem to stern... )

I have a regular big non-flat 27" redundant TV. It was on loan for about 6 years and it's back. It works. Free to a good home! Anyone want? If not, do you know of a good organization to donate it to?

This week has been thus far marked by gremlins in my works. From the email misery to leaving the door to my car open all night to having mysterious grease stains on my clean shirt to having a beloved toy disappear from my desk... I am not liking it.

Remember when I was in shock that it was last monday? Well wash, rinse, repeat. We're halfway through 2008 and I feel like I'm still not finished contemplating the impact of 2007.

tzel and I went to the Ram's Head Live last week to see Pat Benatar. Beforehand, however, we had dinner at Mex next door. On a weekend, I probably wouldn't want to set foot in the place, but early on a Tuesday it was lovely inside. We had excellent service and apart from their unfortunate problem of being out of avocados, the food was good. It was not blowing us away - the cheese dip needed more spice for instance - but worth it, as it was on the cheap side for dinner. The show itself was good - her voice was clear and beautiful. Her band rocked. The crowd was mostly women our age and up, although the wonderful guys standing behind us who were clearly big Pat fans were great; since I couldn't see real well I just enjoyed the big gay dance party.

I never talk about work here because I largely can't talk about specifics and sometimes generalities. I do kind of mostly paddle along right now with a great deal of fear because my main support person is completely consumed in another project. I am on my own and very confused most of the time. It's not my favorite but fortunately my boss continues to be great.

Finally went to see the Sex & the City movie with my classmates from A&P. I take it back, my one classmate and Jack, because everyone else bailed. Mostly I realized that for a half-hour show I can take and leave what I like and hate, but for a two hour movie, it just left me angry for myriad reasons. But hey, Chris Noth on the big screen, that's a plus.

The next few weeks of my summer class-taking will consist of mainly project stuff. The group project (groan) & the paper. My plan of attack is to take the book (for the paper) which I just finished reading and make a bunch of notes of things I could possibly talk about and then like dough, allow it to rise through insertion of extra words. For the group project - that will require more research. I sent my group a list of tasks last night. I am desperately hoping they respond by Wednesday. I just want this done and over with at this point.

For a totally unplanned weekend, I did a mess of stuff: lunch at Abol with omphaloskepsis and tzel, after which we scoured the Crafty Bastards fair for things that were not twee, irreverent t-shirts and adorable stuffed monsters. (I bought handmade soap. I have enough for three years now.) And then took a timeout af the Piratz Tavern, where we got crumby service and no ice. The vegetarian platter at Abol was really good though. I could do that every weekend! I wish I knew how to count the points though.

After I dropped my ladyfriends off, I chilled at home long enough to cool off and then headed to the 9:30 to catch chiba's band The Hypersonic Secret. They were pretty darn good.

Got home and pretty much was in for the rest of the weekend trying to read chapters in the text & playing diablo ii, after the great news from blizzard inspired us. Hey, with the latest patch you don't have to keep the CD in. LAN party anyone?

tzel made an amazing tapas slow-food style feast for me and some friends for our belated birthdays. It was absolutely worth the wait.

I'll have to report on the rest of the weekend later as clearly it's holiday grillin' time. These are some but not all of the photos - click through for more if you are so inclined.

( to the photos )

I had no idea dongle was a real word until I saw it today in an official spec.

My dentist has informed me that in addition to the chip I took off the back of my tooth which I just got filled this morning, my nightly grinding may be cracking my old fillings. How about that. I will be really making an effort to wear that guard then.

This weekend was a fine one; I pulled a good grade on a very hard quiz out of my butt on Friday. I woke up nice and late on Saturday and in plenty of time to attend drivingblind's next session of the FFF game. I may have made a total ass of myself in front of his friend, however, due to my misunderstanding of turns and timing. I departed in a hurry to change and have dinner with my parents at Bluestone Grill in Timonium where they were staying to go to a train show or something. I have to say, that was a fantastic choice, and thanks to dharshai for the recommendation. I got to have the beloved scallops. Seeing mom and dad was good too, and it made me all sniffly and wishing we could do that every week. Also mom brought me a eucalyptus plant which I need to put in the ground. I have been wanting one since we moved in. :)

When we got home we totally slacked. There was some WoW and there was SNL.

Sunday salami_salome and I visited the Body Gallery. More on that perhaps later.

I feel like I'm still psychologically recovering from going out of town and then not having any recovery time (I was supposed to have some, but I couldn't take the time off work after the death cold). So I'm feeling really reclusive.

OK, let's try that again. I welcome Tuesday with open arms.

So only two of you many fine friends can imagine coming up with enough country songs to fill a mix cd? I know I have more country fans, surreptitious or proud, on my flist than that!

This review of the Matrix Energy drink cracked me up.

This weekend was busy, and great! Well, with a setback here or there. ( dissection, chili, philly, and RP )

I had a pretty good weekend, despite the fact that I have been in a bit of a funk lately. I know the various reasons for this: me being lazy, feelings of inadequacy at work. It all comes down to that.

So friday I was totally selfish and showed up late to dinner with an excuse of manicure going over its alotted time. I feel so much better, however, now that the claws have been removed. I was starting to get a little Howard Hughes-ey there. Dinner, by the way, was a lovely event with people I get to see far too little of. I can't remember if I've been to a Cuban restaurant before but everything we had was very yummy. (Specifically we went to Cuba de Ayer in Burtonsville.)

When we got home, we played WoW.

Saturday I did a bunch of driving. First to drum lesson (new assignment: White Wedding!!!) then out to Leesburg to exchange my christmas present. So I finally after months of desiring have a fancy new watch. It's the basic Seiko Coutura and it was marked down to like half price because of some minor cosmetic blemish or other. Bah! It works great. No, it's not a perpetual motion one but come to find out they don't even make those in ladies' anymore because ladies apparently won't wear a watch that big. "Friggin' ladies", I believe, were my exact words to the salesperson.

I got back in time from the wilds of outletty Virginia to play some WoW, and then attend a showing of Juno at the greenbelt theater. Yes, it was as good as everyone said. Periodically it walked up to the "Too Twee" line and poked its nose over, but then sauntered back away to less annoying ground. Lots of belly laughs, however, and lots of J.K. Simmons. Sweet. After this we hit the diner.

When we got home, we played WoW.

Sunday I got up and managed to convince my butt to put in some laundry. I got ready and was just in time for my Buddhist anger management class. It was a much bigger crowd this time but the same adorable soft-spoken teacher taught the first part of the thing. By about halfway through, I was despairing as to whether there was any hope for me to let go, but by the end I had managed some helpful thoughts for eliminating bad mental habits. There was a helpful image early on about how going through life angry, rejecting all the things that happen that you cannot control is like driving with the emergency brake on. You have that moment where you ask yourself, "why is driving so hard?" before you release the brake. That is exactly what being angry is like, only we forget sometimes that we actually do have our hand on the brake lever. Next session is anxiety, in April, and BOY HOWDY do I look forward to that.

When I got home, we played even more WoW( digression about WoW )

Earlier this week I made the transition from my Timbuk 2 bag to my new and very beloved and fresh and happy Sherpani Vida. I sort of not really documented how everything fits in here and here and display how it looks on here and despair for its gross marketing here. So far you could consider its only downside to be the total ineffectuality of the drawstring, except that it has a flap and is no less secure than my T2 bag so I don't care. The lining inside is light and makes things easy to find, it makes all my heavy crap sit better on my shoulders, and it has 4 little external pockets for my 4 essentials: phone, ipod, camera, wallet. And the magnets make it so it doesn't stick to all other fabrics like velcro.

Remember when I used to do frozen meal reviews? Well here's another one:



Amy's Bowls Pesto Tortellini was actually quite tasty and probably no good for you. It didn't look colorless and unappealing before cooking, and it looks just about like it should after. There was no dearth of filling to the tortellini. I guess it would be hard to mess up tortellini and pesto sauce, but you can't be sure with the frozen foods industry. For 430 calories and 3 bucks, it's not a bad buy even for the health conscious and it filled me right up. It even had a reasonable amount of fiber. Another upshot of this review: now that I know there is such a thing as the heateatreview and that it has already covered the ground I care about, maybe I won't bother with this again!

And here is your obligatory cat picture:



WHO IS PRECIOUS AND FLIRTY MEOW MEOW

I did not tell you about my weekend. Why don't I do that now.

1. I got drunk and went shopping (Thursday). In that order. YES, it makes the decisions alot easier. Also: FUNNER.

2. I got drunk and went duckpin bowling with some femjays. Not quite in that order. It makes the bowling less easy. I also made an ass of myself. But: FUNNER.

3. I drove to Pottstown, PA to my Genesis friends' house and we listened to the 5.1 stuff. Because they have 5.1 and think nothing of sitting around and listening to music. AWESOMESAUCE.

4. They drove me from there over to the Keswick theater, a nice old place from back when people were less wide (TINY SEATS) and saw The Musical Box, new drummer and all. We kibbutzed with other forumites beforehand (ahh, music geeks) and the show was PHENOMENAL. During the Firth guitar solo, I felt bolts of musical energy nail me to the back of my seat.

5. I came home, fought a raging headache all day, but managed to file a ton of stuff, shred a ton of stuff, and do laundry.

6. I made Jack wrap presents while I made (burned) presents. (Monday) We realized that basically all TV is over until the writers come back. It was liberating. We had our first Pizza Hut pizza in a long while. It is better if you wait a long time in between.

Big exam tuesday. Despite the fact that I have been bragging like mad about how smart I am, I need to study tonight. What is good study food?

Last night's dream was clearly housecleaning: ( Read more... )

Notice: I will be at renfaire this weekend. Who else is planning on being there?
( assorted other stuff )

Well, I really didn't know what I'd been missing all these years. Now, I'm sure I had what could be considered an optimal lawn-concert experience in a venue that has a capacity of 25,000. There were several good points about Tweeter Center not the least of which was the gorgeous view of Philly.

But enough about that. Let's talk about Rush. I've never been your huge Rush fan. In fact I am sure I have been a little anti at times. But if there was any question about my devotion before seeing them live, it is totally gone. The main thing I was concerned about is that their studio material is so clean and and well-produced (for my own scale of well-produced) that I was having a hard time imagining how the material would come across live, if it would be too perfect or have that energy. I shouldn't have doubted. Even from way, way back on the lawn the energy was great. The setlist included most of the favorites, and I was up and out of my "seat" as soon as I heard the opening to Subdivisions. At some point early on I was like "why am I the only jackass moving around?" (I don't know if you'd call it dancing) but as the giant novelty glasses of beer flowed there was more air instrumentalism and general enthusiastic pointing and horns-throwing. At some point the following amusing dialogue occurred:

snidegrrl: Did you think you would see monkeys fucking tonight?
angela_la_la: No, that had not occurred to me.

Some other highlights: the South Park intro to Tom Sawyer, Geddy filming the audience making a group greeting to Canada, obviously the drum solo, and the completely random and inexplicable chicken rotisserie machines set up on the stage. At points I was like, "is it worth it to be so far away?" but considering the non-egregious ticket price and relatively painless crowd experience, I think it totally was.

My weekend didn't stop there, though. After the concert we had to go get cheesesteaks (it's official: I don't really care that much for cheesesteaks) where some kid who probably wasn't even at the show complimented me on my Porcupine Tree shirt. We tooled around Philly a bit saturday and had the incomparable cheese fries at Chickie & Pete's. We zoomed home so I could meet up with femjays for sleepover, vegan cupcakes, and general silliness. Pictures of makeovers may exist, but I'm not telling! And when I got up sunday morning, I joined tzel for a trip to Linganore winery for tour & tasting! PHEW. Technically I think I still haven't caught up on sleep.

Which is probably why last night I dreamed that salami_salome and I were part of a RPG where you had to use real objects you actually own to represent powers in game and there was a real person who was an enforcer of sorts who came to reclaim your things who just happened to be T.R. Knight, not that I've been watching too much Grey's Anatomy. But then I woke up and had a light bulb moment about a game mechanic I thought would be really awesome and will now have to look up the Fudge rules and see if my nocturnal game design dovetails.

Yesterday was very much a monday. Work kind of stinks. I rolled up a blood elf paladin on Uther and fooled around with that most of the night. And that is as detailed I can be abuot anything due to time.

I lied about going to sleep in an email a few minutes ago. I didn't think I was at the time.

First, we saw 1408. Well, I thought John Cusack did a really fantastic job with the material. I thought I was going to be creeped right out of the theater... for the first half. Somewhere along the line, the stuff they apparently added to the short story to make it more film-friendly got a little hackneyed. Bummer. See the first half!!

Second, I have these mp3s by a band called The Teardrop Explodes. I don't know where I got them. They are very "new wave". I really, really like them. Who gave me these? On examination, I bet it was professorbooty.

Third, I waited not so patiently for Grey's Anatomy disc 2 to come. I squee'ed with glee when it arrived. We got through 1.5 eps before it crapped out on us. Netflix is sending me a replacement but really, since when have I been so psyched to watch something I've gotten in the mail? Curses.

Fourth, as it turns out, Great Sage is a pretty good restaurant. I was feeling all backlashy about vegetarian/vegan stuff, but no, it was good.

My to do list next week needs to consist of nothing more than:
1. Pay speeding ticket
2. Renew driver's license
3. Figure out how to register for community college class

OK, now I can go to bed.

last night i sauteed some zucchini in a little butter and pepper. jack said it was fantastic. i thought it tasted like nasty plastic. *sigh* i still have 2 more zucchinis... what am i going to do to make them palatable to me?

we are supposed to go on at 9:30 tonight. i have to be there at 8pm, excitingly. i have to swing by and get our bassist in NW (the bar is basically on the opposite side of town, in NE), so that means we'll be leaving the house like 3 hours before we go on. i guess this is typical! i reiterate my request for xanax.

I had high hopes for this one, since someone either here or in the WW community recommended it after my last food review post. It doesn't disappoint so much as it doesn't stand out. The lasagna is visually appealing when you take it out of the box (doesn't look mushed and fake). It appears to have enough cheese to legitimately be called lasagna. The ingredient list is totally chemical-free and readable by a layperson, which is neat! But I do kind of hate when the serving is obviously meant for one meal, but the nutrition info says "Servings Per Container: 2", making the immediate glance for calorie and fat counts slightly trickier. Of course, you are also paying a premium for organic, so this is a $5 meal.

Now to the actual eatin': I thought to myself, as I looked at the thickness of the noodles, "I'll bet these have a funny texture." And I was right. They are a bit thick and al dente, but you get over that pretty quick. The cheese, despite being lowfat, is tasty and the sauce is terrific. Now, if you are already a veggie fan, this will be a no-brainer for you. I thought the veggies were going to be... masked well. And they are, to some extent. But the zucchini, while diced pretty small, is noticeably vegetabley, and could be a turnoff.

All in all, while this is reasonably tasty and entirely edible, my experience with the Amy's lasagna was a better one.

(3 WW pts for half the box and 6 pts for the whole box.)

OK, so I have been observing the fantastic bentolunch community lately. And then today tzel sent me this bento link. It is easy to chop up some things, or grab a few pita chips or carrots, or what have you to put in a bento box. But what I don't get is:

How do you prepare noodles to pack up on a daily basis? Or rice? Surely these people do not cook these starchy items the same day they pack them? Don't noodles get kind of oogy and weird if you refrigerate them? And rice, doesn't it get hard?

Please forgive my food ignorance, and enlighten me gently. :)

( blathering about health, food, healthfood )

Reviews of recent "healthy" microwaveable meals: (x-posted to _weightwatchers)

	Kashi Lemon Rosemary Chicken: This was just gross. No taste to it, or the rosemary had some kind of negative effect on me, since I admit I sometimes don't like rosemary. But to me this tasted like... nothing. Dust. Negative space. I salted the crap out of it and ate it anyways. The texture was fine, and it looked alright, but it tasted just bad. I think I will keep the Kashi for cereal. (7 WW Points)
	Campbell's Chunky To Go Chicken Noodle: I am fond of this! I had been drinking the ones that come in a drinkable cup, the non chunky ones, and admit to reticence about those. But these taste great! And are actually filling! I don't feel like I need to supplement them with a bunch of crackers and crap. But I can, because they are not that many calories. I have also tried their "Sirloin Burger" and it is quite good as well. And has tiny burgers in it... I mean, c'mon. (3 to 4 WW points)
	Amy's Vegetable Lasagna: This is the reason I went ahead and made this post. When I was last at the grocery store, I bought several different veggie/organic lasagnas to try, and was planning on posting reviews of them all together. Then my back hurt and I was lazy. But this is worth posting about. Maybe it's just easier to make microwavable lasagna that tastes good? I don't know but this tastes awesome, just as awesome as any other lasagna I've had out of the oven. Proof you can eat cheese and be healthy at the same time. I am chowing down on one right now and yum. Will buy again! (6 WW points)

Hey, it's monday and I have time for a ( weekend wrapup! )

I think this post contains one of the better comment threads I've had on this here journale.

Halloween weekend was nice. Friday simplesimon came over and shot the shit with us. I had dinner with battema on saturday, made it to crafting_change's soon after, and jetted over to tzel's to end the night by a real smoky fire with beer and happiness. John and I ate at the sunflower cafe in vienna, which is a veggie place. I ate there! And at Laura's I had vegan pumpkin cheesecake that just blew me away. It would have been an all veggie day except there was 7 layer dip at Telf's. Mmmmm beefs.

Sunday we went to see The Prestige. I thought it was fantastic and stood on its own, being faithful to the book while possibly surpassing it in its own right. Go see it. We did a big grocery trip together which is actually one of life's simple pleasures, and then headed home and I made fake gravestones while we watched GGS6 on dvd.

Today I've emailed both my potential tattoo artist and some potential bandmates that Olya found. And we had the halloween decorating contest at work which, I will not hesitate to say I am completely sick of at this point. I made my office into a scene from the movie Pet Sematary. We got 2nd place. Whee. I hope we get some kids tonight, because I need to unload all that candy.

We did make it to the KPC zen center yesterday. Which of course just served to make me realize how un-zen I am living my life right now. Catty? Check. Holding on to petty resentments? Check. Letting little things get to me? Check.

But in happy news, I cooked dinner! I don't know if baking the tilapia (in a slight amount of oil and a possibly generous amount of butter) is worse for you than going ahead and sauteeing it up in a pan with a pat of butter, but I could make three at the same time and that's what is important. It tasted the same as the frying pan method.

I need to go to the office supply store and get:
1. a binder and sheet protectors for storing loose recipes
2. an alphabetical accordion folder for lyrics & tabs

I need a new bass amp.

And here is my big exciting news for the day: I have to go to Reno, NV in less than 4 weeks for the Wild West vet conference. Um, yay?