Ah, New England!

It's been a while since I ranted about the weather on here. Let me just observe, for the record, that it was beautiful, sunny, and in the high 50s on Friday. Friday. Two days ago.

Today it is 23 and snowing.

Ed: And we're apparently getting hammered with 15 inches tonight. Tough commute tomorrow!

For the Record:

You know that really hot mustard that comes with Chinese food? I didn't like it for most of my life.

But now I do.

For the Record: Hulu.com

For the record, Hulu.com is awesome. All sorts of TV shows up there for free viewing, like Family Guy, The Office, and Arrested Development. They even have movies up there! Of course all the videos have sponsored ad spots. Hulu.com is my new favorite thing on the interwebs.

For the Record

Amstel Light is horrendous.

That is all.

For the Record,

Grapefruit eaten without the proper utensils is frustrating to the point of uselessness. And it had such juicy and delicious potential...

Google Is Awesome

For the record, I just want to state that Google is awesome. For a while I've been quasi-using Bloglines and/or the Google Reader to check on blog updates, but I don't really like reading the entries in the window format. Lacks the personality of each blog. So normally I end up clicking through all my friends' blogs and other regularly read blogs for updates. I've got a lot of blogs now that I enjoy checking frequently, but I hate jumping around to each one and checking the Reader feed just doesn't appeal to me that much.

However, Google Reader has a neat little feature called the "Next" bookmark. Go into the Reader's Settings and under the Goodies tab, you can throw up the Next bookmark (as well as a one click Subscribe bookmark). What this does is it goes to each new item in your feed, just as if you went to the page yourself. Awesome! Now I can not only check out all my updates quickly and easily, but I can also gaze lovingly upon the various little spots that each of my favorite bloggers inhabits in the Blogosphere. It's a simple little tidbit but I love it already.

Also, to add: Google's whole suite of free Web apps is just fantastic. Gmail, calendar, the iGoogle Homepage (played with this for the first time today - very customizable), Web Analytics, the Chat - it's just awesome.

Thanks, Google. I *heart* thee unabashedly.

For the Record

My #1 choice for the summer intern has declined the position. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

Wow, wow. Lotta Action. Lot. Of. Action.

First of all, let me just state for the record that I am a huge fan of this vacation thing. Doing fun stuff during otherwise mundane weekdays? Sign me up for a lifetime pass, please. I worked five out of the last ten weekdays, and it has been a glorious stretch for a number of reasons. I mentioned my trip to the OC here, but this past Memorial Day weekend has been fantastic as well.

Thanks to Anne for hosting a few fun-packed days down in lovely West Yarmouth on Cape Cod. I escaped work early on Thursday and we headed down to her house to meet up with Amanda and then trek out to the Beachcomber in Wellfleet. Although it was a decent drive, it was a cool spot - live music, indoor, outdoor & raw bars, and many local lunchboxes. On the trip back I absolutely dominated 20 Questions.

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Friday was the Best Possible Beach Day In the World, which we happened to spend at (one of) the Best Beach(es) on the Cape. It was a nice spot - private, not crowded - and we hung out there for several hours. Thanks to the wonders of modern radiation protection, I did not get a burn at all, but rather a slight darkening of my usual pallid complexion. That evening we spent roughly five hours preparing dinner, but it was tremendous: a summer Waldorf salad, an assortment of grilled veggies, taboule-marinated chicken, and sesame-encrusted tuna steak. This last item was one of the best things I have ever had the pleasure to eat, thanks to the culinary stylings of Marc. After dinner we went to Molly's, a local Yarmouth spot that was just absolutely bonkers on a Friday night. If you've been to the elite New York and Boston nightclubs then you know the kind of scene I'm talking about.

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Saturday we hit the beach again but it wasn't quite as nice - it got cool, windy and overcast toward mid-afternoon, and we didn't get to the beach as early as we should have, given various delays due to bridge construction. We were joined by Krisjamin for dinner, which was a full-fledged, multi-course jam 'em up: fish chowder, an avocado & tomato salad, stuffed quahogs that were the most buttery-delicious things ever, more grilled veggies, steak and some more tuna. A couple reds proved themselves respectable libations to accompany our repast, and a birthday cake appeared to usher in yet another year of Franco-Canuck-induced hijinks. I received the Best Birthday Gift Ever in the form of one Cape Cod, MA T-shirt. Sunday was basically cleaning up and getting back to the Hub after a tremendously delicious frittata made from leftover grilled veggies. Amanda has pics up of the trip here.

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Again, thanks to Anne, Ben and I were able to snag tickets for the Memorial Day Sox game against the Indians. We had bleacher seats that were actually pretty decent. I hadn't sat in the bleachers in years. Great, great game to get to go to. There was a lot of crazy awesomeness that went down, including:

1. The triumphant return of Trot Nixon. This was one of those special Fenway moments - he got a huge ovation when he ran out to RF in the bottom of the first, and at his first at-bat during the top of the second, he got a long, loud, standing ovation. It was simply awesome. He also roped one into right for a hit, for which he received due props. Then he quickly became another Indian.
   
2. Father Curt pitched a great game. 7 innings of 6-hit, 1-run ball with 10 Ks and zero walks. He looked really good - after he fanned the side in the first I felt like I was lucky enough to get to see a good game (I have rather a poor history with seeing games live. Usually I watch Wake pitch - no knock against him, but I'd like some variety - and usually they lose. Clearly this is because my sample size is far, far, far too small). A fascinating take on his performance and the nuances of his pitching struggles can be found in his little corner of the blogosphere. His splitter was nasty.
   
3. A triple play! Almost, that is. Although in actuality it would only have been possible with one of the Molina brothers lollygagging down the first base line. He beat the throw by a solid step and a half from what I could tell.
4. An inside-the-park home run by Youkilis, the unlikely candidate! The ball took a big, sharp carom off the center field triangle and allowed the Greek God of Walks to sprint home. Unbelievable. Youk has been just - dare I say? - godlike thus far.
   
5. Papelbon's entrance. I'm almost sure I haven't seen him enter a game live, but it's quite the spectacle. People started standing up and cheering while he was warming up, and then "Wild Thing" came on, everyone was on his feet screaming as Pap sprinted out to the infield grass, came to a halt, and calmly walked to the mound. The camera flashes were going off like 4th of July fireworks on every pitch he threw. Insane.
   
6. A play in the top of the ninth that I don't think I had ever seen before. With one out, Pap threw a 1-2 pitch to Blake. From where I sat, it looked like Blake checked his swing and fouled off the pitch. Evidently the pitch hit him on the hand. The umpire called it a walk, but Blake was soon called out after Francona spurred a discussion with the first base ump. In the ump's opinion Blake's check-swing broke the zone, and thus counted as a swing and a strike, despite his actually getting hit by the pitch. Because it was strike three, Blake was called out. This was a huge out because Pap had been struggling a bit. But when Pap K'd Hafner for the save, the place absolutely erupted. Awesome.

A truly great game. The 5-3 win was exciting and packed with Red Sox Dramatic Moments. It felt like one of those season-defining games - granted, it's early, but the last time we had a record this good after 50 games was back in 1986. Something big happened then...

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I've been catching up on my shows on the off times the last couple weeks. The most recent Sopranos was excellent. Entourage keeps me laughing and wishing I were at least moderately wealthy and living in LA. LOST blew my goddamn socks, pants and general accoutrements off; as a finale one couldn't ask for too much more, given the raised expectations over the course of the second half of Season 3. I won't go into detail, given that at least one regular reader of this blog has yet to watch it, but suffice it to say that it's packed with action, excitement, and enough Mikhail to keep us all fat and giggly.

For the Record

I would like to state for the record that Nichole is A-Side. She had been telling me to expect a package in the mail this week, and I received a box of napkins with "Point Napkin" printed on them. Not only is this super-incredible-sweet-awesome, but I love the font and color!

Gave her a 5 spot.