"Aw man, it smells like a Bible story in here!"

A relatively quiet and subdued weekend spent grading papers from both classes (because I'm the moron who made all the assignments on the same day), so I've been alternating between (mostly) despressingly crappy freshman research essay drafts and (mostly) well-written upperclass film papers. It seems that alternating back and forth makes it a little more tolerable.

Got to party hard (for two hours at least) at erOTic's (tm) bachelor party Saturday at Hofbrau, and learned a little bit of conversational Portuguese on the drive down.

Thanks to the dotseges (and johnnycakes) for putting up with my overly cooked pork chops on Saturday, and congrats to Tom for joining the Spring 2008 award-winners club. Too bad he still can't beat me at Smash Brothers.

Took my sister to lunch for her birthday, and she ruined my April Fool's gift. Jerk.

I just got done watching the new all-CGI Beowulf, and it was actually pretty damn good, at least once you get past the pixelated nudity. There's a lot of Neil Gaiman-esque themes present, which I appreciate. I'd like to to a side-by-side viewing of this version and Beowulf and Grendel, a 'historical' version from a few years back with Gerald Butler in the lead. I give it 4.72 Sparkplugs.

The Waiting Game sucks, let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos

ARGGH - two full days of student conferences, where at least 75% of people haven't even started their 10 page Research Essay yet. It was assigned prior to Spring Break, I've been giving them constant pre-writing and outlining exercises, and the First Draft is due tomorrow.

I'm starting to get swamped by my own work (3 30+ pagers, all due within 24 hours of each other), but it's good to have the light at the end of the tunnel that represents never having to teach GSW again. Ever. No, really, I'm running like hell after I turn in my portfolios.

I watched perhaps the oddest collections of films the last few days. The first was Lake of Fire, a 3-hour long documentary on the abortion debate; while it remains objective throughout, it's really just depressing, since both sides of the argument are both absolutely right and absolutely wrong. Yesterday, in a discussion about comparing theoretical lenses of world cinema with American cinema, we watched Xica de Silva, possibly the strangest thing I have ever seen, involving gratuitous nudity and at least one orgy, along with some awesome 70s haristyles - I think the movie is a criticism of racism, but I'm not entirely sure. After 2+ hours of Portuguese-language sexfest, I got to (finally, as it's been scheduled on the syllabus for each class since week 3) watch Battle of Algiers; I had worked on getting this screened at the Neon several years ago, but came down with a flu bug the day it was showing, and missed it. But you know, watching a bootleg VHS copy on a small screen in an uncomfortable chair still didn't make the movie any less awesome. The instructor failing to plan properly (nothing new there; despite having 3.5 hours to work with, she can't schedule a 90-min screening) and having to stop the movie prematurely, before the climactic riot scene - that's what ruined the movie. Finally, I get back to my room and watch Blades of Glory while grading papers. I challenge anyone to top that combo of viewing!

I got some more feedback on my conference presentation this morning, as well as reassurance that my paper didn't completely bite. So I got that going for me.

If this doesn't make you excited, you're probably a communist

Twenty dollars can be used to buy many peanuts...

You've seen the pictures, and heard the stories so far, but you're wondering - what about the food? How have they managed to find McDonald's so close to their hotel? Has our beloved blogger finally given in and eaten tofu? Can sourdough bread really stop a small-caliber bullet? Is Rice-A-Roni truly a local 'treat'?

Tuesday:

3:15 est - Max & Erma's at the CVG

Before we leave for the West Coat, I try to build up my transfats and undercooked beef. Decent burger, trademark quality fries, sadly no Dr. Pepper

8:00 pt - Lori's Diner, Mason Street

We get off the shuttle from the airport (which is not at all complementary, by the way) and I'm bloody starving. Next to the hotel was a 24-hr diner, so we grabbed a couple of delicious grilled cheese sammiches. This was the last time I found non-fishbone fries.

Wednesday:

(no breakfast, presenting at conference)

2:00 pt - Foley's Irish Pub

There's something awesome about a traditional Irish pub that has an oil-painted portrait of Bono on the wall. I grabbed a panini (which is apparently the dominant form of sammich out here) with ham, cheese, and some more stuff - good sammich, but the 'fresh greens' it came with looked and tasted like my lawn.

7:15 pt - Colibri

The Wife had read a review of this mexican/spanish place, and wanted to come here. It was uber-trendy (old silent Spanish films being played on a plasma over the bar), but had surprisingly large portions. I got chunks of pork, she got chicken and mashed potatoes with orange sauce on top. My favorite part was the pineapple salsa that got served as part of a color-coordinated 3-salsa tray.

Thursday:

7:30 pt - Sears Fine Foods

Despite all the signs proclaiming good Zagat ratings, this place was pretty reasonable, and kind of like the Nugget (if all the servers were Guatamalan). The Wife got a seafood omelette, and I got the 18-Swedish-pancake breakfast (good, even though the pancakes were tiny and thin). I ordered an extra side of sausage links, but only got 2 medium-sized links (which apparently cost $1.40 per link).

1:15 pt - Cliff House Bistro

After walking for 3 straight hours, we finally hiked the final hundred (uphill) steps up to the restaurant. The Cliff House has 4 seperate dining areas, ranging from casual to snooty, and we were inexplicably pointed toward the lower, very-snooty area, where the cheapest salad was $28. We sat for 15 minutes without anyone stopping by or even filling up the water, then left and went back upstairs. We ended up at the bar in the Bistro (where we were trying to go in the first place), and enjoyed drastically better service. I got a chicken sammich that came with a surprisingly tasty (although bizarrely green) pesto sauce. I drank about 20 glasses of water, which would be more impressive if the glasses weren't tiny and ice-filled.

6:30 pt - Boudin's

Located down at Fisherman's Wharf, this place is a massive sourdough bakery on the lower level (where folks can watch the bread being made from the sidewalk) and a bar/grill on the second floor. I decided to go ahead and order a normal beer, and accombanied that with a oddly dry burger and a freaking awsome dish of macaroni and cheese (several cheeses, massive noodles). Wife got a sourdough bowl of chowder.

Friday:

8:15 pt - Port of San Francisco Market

Waiting for the ferry to take us across the bay to Napa, we both got egg/cheese/bacon breakfast sammiches, which were surprisingly large and tasty.

12:30 pt - V. Sattui Winery

Took a break from drinking for a couple of paninis - not bad, but apparently not enough food to soak up the Wife's wine and champagne later in the day (see above)

7:30 pt - Cafe Mason

Despite the snooty French names on the menu and too-hip decor, this might have been the best overall food(taste and size)-to-cost ratio so far. We give in and order cokes and an appetizer of potato skins (excellent). The Wife gets tortellini, which she said was good. I was all kinds of hip and ordered the Croque Monsieur (french-style ham & cheese sammich, only with French Toast instead of normal toast), and it came with non-fishbone fries! Huzzah!

Saturday:

[will update - planning on grabbing breakfast from diner next door, and probably airport lunch involving cinnabon]

DEATH at 14 mph!!!!

The last 24 hrs have been eventful to say the very least. Our evening started off calmly last night. It was a beautiful evening and our plan was to go to Fisherman's Wharf and see the touristy sites so we jumped on the cable car which pretty much runs directly from our hotel to the wharf.

The ride up was nothing to really talk about, but after a couple of hours of marveling at Alcatraz, psychotic seagulls, and the crazy amounts of people who are oddly facinated with giant smelly creatures...

we were ready to just get back to our hotel and go to bed. So, we returned to the cable car line for the ride back to Union Square. With the ride there so pleasant, I insisted we sit in the front this time so we could see everything on the way back. Little did I know that the ride back would be terrifying!

First, we were chugging along and we hit the first big hill... I'm not quite sure what happened, but suddenly we started rolling backwards down the hill. The "driver" is dinging the bell and the assistant is yelling at the cars behind us to "GO AROUND!" The driver throws on the brakes and gains control of the car. Then, after rolling backwards all the way down the hill into the middle of an intersection we charge up the hill and make it to the top and over down the other side. We then go through a series of turns, random intersection transfers, down some super-steep hills, and we're racing down a side street that intersects with another cross street which has a stop sign, when something happens that makes me think I'm going to die...

A giant white van runs through the stop sign crossing our path and SLOWS down in the middle of the intersection. I, sitting at the front of the cable car, can look the van driver straight in the eye as we are careening down the hill towards him. The driver of the cable car again throws on the brakes and the driver of the van seems to finally realize that there is a cable car flying towards him and drives on. We literally come within a foot of hitting him! At this point I want nothing more than to be off of that crazy car! In a few more blocks we are off and to our room where we collapsed from exhaustion and terror! I don't think my heart has ever beat so hard!

Luckily, today was much more relaxed. We took the ferry from San Francisco to Vallejo and rode a private limo through Napa Valley where we visited 5 different wineries and tasted numerous wine varieties at each stop. It was fantastic! The weather was wonderful and the landscape was beautiful.

It was a great (quasi-drunk) day! I'm sad that our trip is coming to an end tomorrow. However, I am looking forward to getting home where there are no giant hills or runaway cable cars. I now appreciate that about Ohio... Funny how a near death experience makes you appreciate the mundane.

We're all quite proud of them...

Yay for pb! It was great to return to our room and find out the good news...

And speaking of good news, several posts ago Husband mentioned that I was being nominated for an award. Well, I won. I have been named one of the buiness journals 40 under 40. The congratulations letter said I'm a "super achiever." Husband wants to order shirts so everyone knows.

Anyway, It's been a pretty great day so far. Here are a few pictures for your viewing delight. We're heading back out to enjoy the city.

City Hall

Alamo Square (or the Full House Houses!)

The Pacific Ocean

California, No Doubt About It..

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day! We had a wonderful Sunday in SH where I got to walk a 5K with my mom and then we went to the Annual St. Paddy's Day Parade. It was a beautiful day to get into the Green spirit, even the Dog!

My niece and nephews are all about the parade. There is LOTS of candy (as you can see below) I think they get more candy at the parade then at Halloween. To be fair, on Halloween you actually have to walk around to get the candy. At the parade, you just sit there and they throw it at you! So easy... Husband got into the action by bribing the children to get him coolie cups and post-it notes. We are well stocked for the next year now.

So, we've been on the West Coast for over 24 hrs now and we are having a GREAT time! Below is a picture of our hotel, the King Geroge. It's in Union Square which is a fun part of the city with lots of art galleries and shopping, and there are wonderful restaurants everywhere. We've had some fabulous food. Today we are heading to Golden Gate Park and then over to Fisherman's Warf... Tomorrow we will be up in Napa Valley taking a limo around wine country! I'm super excited! We'll probably check in later so keep posted...


P.S. Good luck to pb and family on Match Day... We are thinking about you, and Happy B-day baby!

Frankenstien not understand line between fantasy and reality...

Thank God the pressure of posting no. 100 is gone, and I can get back to normal blogging. Those of you who know me (hello, random reader who googled "Batman Ear Sex"!) understand that, sadly, I'm not hyperbolizing when I saw I actually spent several days mired in doubt and uncertainty before just panicking and avoiding the interweb altogether. Here were several of the possible ideas for the 100th post (that might be brought back for post #200):

• A post from Dog's point of view, in which she exhorted the proletariat to rise up, cast off the shackles of capitalism, and bring her the head of Colonel Montoya (a shiny new donkey to the man who does so!)
• After watching LOST from two weeks ago, an entire post from 1996 time-unstuck me, who is primarily wondering 1) where the hell he is and 2) why he got new shoes; it is estimated that "HoHos are my constant"
• A completely blank post that encouraged the viewer to create their own ur-post; I blame this idea on a current course that's required me to view performance art
• The word "poop" 100 times
• The lyrics to the hit song "Thumby the Dirty Shoemaker"
• A word-for-word reprinting of the very first post on this blog, about Pirate Day
• Listing my 10 favorite comments from posts 1-99
• Posting the 5 best things that never got posted (including a structural reading of the classic film Commando)
• Finally, just posting an innocuous 101st post later that referred to the 100th post, again encouraging the viewer to create their own ur-post...

My only other (possibly legitimate) excuse for my absence was the long-awated release of Smash Brothers for the wii last week. It's pretty much bitchcakes, and thre's even an online option. Even though they dropped a couple of my favorite characters (no Dr. Mario?), the ones they added are all fairly worthwhile - even if I haven't figured out how to use Snake, it's pretty clear that someone who masters the timing of his slow attacks could be more or less unbeatable (I guess the same goes for the Pikmin guy). PB - if you don't have this yet, you should go buy it.

100th Blog Spectacular

This was the biggest build up to nothing in the history of blogdom. Countdown to Aweseome? More like Countdown to Boring! And since Husband doesn't seem to have any intention of following through with his promise for awesomness of the 100th Blog variety, I am stealing his thunder and doing it for him.

So this is what we have been up to over the last two weeks...

1. I attended my 7 1/2 year reunion... Yes, you read correctly. I attended my 7 1/2 year reunion. It was quite fun actually! I got to see a lot of people I haven't seen in a while and I drank lots of beer. It was bizarre to me to see the breakdown of people in the room. At the 5 year reunion people generally hung out in their cliques from high school. This time around there was a nice split down the room between all of those who have children and/or are expecting and wanted to talk about child birth and diapers, and then everyone else. Thanks to MN (who may be new readership) for planning.
2. Husband was on Spring Break and did pretty much nothing. Oh, but if you ask him he was "writing papers" which must be lazy talk for "I slept most of the day"
3. The dog got a hair cut. She looks like a new dog. Seriously. She looks much younger and is more aerodynamic. You can tell she feels good about hereself as she struts her bad self through the neighborhood. Here she is sporting the hobo look before her stop at the doggie salon:
And here she is after: Total dog hotness!

4. We got lots of snow last weekend... Here is a picture of Husband shoveling snow while I was warm and cozy in the house.
Gott love him for letting me stay warm!

5. Finally, I just have to share with our readership just how ridiculous Husband can truly be (like you didn't already know.) Below is the unaltered contents of an email I recieved from him during a particularly busy day at work:

   Since you apparently are choosing not to pick up your phone...I've made an executive decision. Juno is playing at 7:20pm at the Regal. We will be seeing it. I might make out with you during the previews and any parts where the movie gets boring. That is all.

Ok, next week we will be in San Francisco for one of Husband's nerd conferences. I get to tag along and do actual fun stuff while he networks and acts smart. My trusty laptop will be accompanying us across the country so maybe we will post from SF... if you're lucky?!

YAY! 100th BLOG! Catch-ya on the West Coast!