The Shame of Middle America

Yet another reason to dislike Mike Huckabee...

From the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/magazine/16huckabee.html?_r=2&pagewanted=3&hp&oref=slogin

"It has been a startlingly quick transformation. Six weeks ago, I met Huckabee for lunch at an Olive Garden restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. (I had offered to take him anywhere he wanted and then vetoed his first choice, T.G.I. Friday’s.)"

SNOW! And racism.

It SNOWED in DC yesterday. So freakin' awesome! We got home from work and immediately put on galoshes and ran outside to walk around in it. Considering that last year at this time the weather at home was colder than the bright and sunny 75 degree weather in DC, we were pretty stoked with the snowfall.

On our walk last night, we came across this little guy and it made us happy:



Of course, because he's racist, Wes pointed out that the Asian owners of the liquor market this snowman was in front of had given the snowman slanty eyes. Classy.

Gummy Bacon

In full finals hell. Went to a 3-hour civil procedure review session where I think I poo'd a little realizing how much I need to absorb before my final @ 8:30am on Monday. But I was able to answer one question correctly and won this fine product. It looks EXACTLY like bacon and tastes like those strawberry sour vines, except without the sour powder. Not bad, but not great. The best is the warning on the back stating:

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FRY OR MICROWAVE

classic

Nicole Richie

Normally this guy does sports reports on YouTube, but I had to share his thoughts on Nicole Richie

740 Cooks

I added a link list to the sidebar of the blog with a link to our list of recipes on Wikispaces. There are not a lot of recipes on it yet, but I am going to be adding more soon. And, it is a wiki, so we can all add new recipes to the list!

heads up

I will be in San Francisco the weekend of February 23 (sorry, Natalie. No birthday surprise this year). If you live there, don't be out of town. If you don't live there, any chance of coordinating trips?

And by the way, you all need to visit Boston. I am very homesick and kind of lonely.

Shasta anyone?

Hi Kiddies,
A friend of mine from high school talked me into climbing Mt. Shasta with her this spring. Anyone interested? The training begins now! We're going to do it sometime in late April. It will be awesome, I promise!

Lex's Replacement

I saw this advertised on TV last night (while I was watching Alton Brown make home made green bean casserole, which I didn't even know existed!):

The SpotBot

You just plop this down on a carpet spot, and if churns away on the stain until it disappears. Which is basically what we do with Lex, but this thing won't sass back. The SpotBot is also substantially less likely to stink up the room, and it will just sit there and take all of our carpet jokes. Of course, that last one won't be nearly as much fun without hearing her tried and true come back: "Shut Up."

gopher box.

Happy Happy Birthday to Samin!!!!!!!!!!!

That's it. She's da best.

me too!

This morning, I had the kind of experience that makes me wish I had a blog. So I started one.

The last time we were here ...

Happy Birthday Amy Lang!

hope it's a great one...and I hope you don't have to grab anything too large with your creepy small hands.

cutest thing since Nick in a pink bunny costume

This pic made my day:

Someone's drunk in the kitchen

As if I couldn't do 90% of his routines from memory already, I'm going to see Jim Gaffigan perform live in Portland on Friday. I'm going with my roommate Maria and 3 of our friends who have heard of him but don't really know what he's all about. I hope they don't get annoyed when I start saying "HOT POCKET" in falsetto during the show.

Jealous? Of course you are.

The end of Cal's football revolution?

Well, its been a great ride. Our hopes for the season were raised higher than ever before, but after watching last night's game, it feels more like the Holmo Era than any time since 2001. Sure, we catch a few more passes than we did in the late 90's, but the quality of the play calling seems strangely familiar ("Up the middle" anyone?).

I think there is a silver lining, though. Remember when we were terrified by some Big 10 school recruiting Tedford away from our cracked and cramped stadium. Michigan is probably feeling pretty good about their coach right now, since he has slowly crawled back up the rankings to #15 after an embarrassing loss to Appalachian State. Meanwhile, Tedford has managed to take his team from #2 in the country to irrelevant in just 21 days. It reminds me of how our team could manage to give up 21 points in 2 minutes under Holmo.

For better or for worse, we may not need to worry about losing Tedford after this season.

My own fire update

The red part is the Santiago fire in Orange County. The bright green marker is my parents' house.

Disco Inferno

So I thought I would give you the latest on the San Diego fires. They are already 10 times worse than the fires a few years ago. Both my Aunts and Uncles have been evacuated. One set is living with my parents. John is living with me on a voluntary evacuation. The air was just too bad where he was. Here in PB things are ok. There are clearly a lot of evacuees around here because there is NO parking anywhere. John and I just got out of the water after what was actually an amazing surf session. 3-5 feet, glassy rights and lefts perfect for longboarding. Long rides, clean lines, cool water. I have to say though that I felt a little like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. But the news said we should stay off the road, don't use cell phones or appliances, and generally stay out of the way. Well surfing was none of those things so in a small way we were doing our part. In all seriousness though John and I are trying to figure out where we can pitch in and are looking for volunteer opportunities. I don't have any money or stuff to donate but there are about 10,000 people at Qualcom Stadium and they might need some help. All reports say that the relief efforts so far are going really well. But we just got word that FEMA is on the way, so we expect everything to go to shit pretty soon. Someone's gonna do a heckufa job on something. But the family and everyone I know is fine. Thanks for asking. More to come.

We are so screwed...

Does everyone realize that we just lost to a team that was beaten badly by Notre Dame, who was slaughtered by USC, who lost to Stanford. Basically, we suck far worse than anyone thought.

The Back Up

wow

Canada is Weird

Erin is right. Canada is weird. And cold.

They've already started minting coins to commemorate the 2010 Olympics. Wes, I brought a quarter home for you. It features a proud member of Canada's Olympic team: The Curler.


I was also attacked by a crocodile.


The food was amazing. Nick, the streets really are paved with smoked meat, and it is delicious.

My Front Yard

This tree is right outside my front yard. Its monstrous and beautiful. Its changed colors twice in the last week. I took this picture yesterday.



PS - You know that smell right after it rains? You know the smell of a wood fire far off in the distance? Combine those two - it pretty much smells like that here all the time.

Things I learned during my weekend in DC:

1. John Fenwick was the first European to settle in West Jersey. I learned this at the John Fenwick Service Area. Fascinating.

2. I am out of shape enough that Wii sports make me tired.

3. The Bears are STILL the Bears - infuriating, yet slightly comforting.

4. The state of Delaware is good for nothing but tolls: 14 miles of road and $9 worth of tolls to be exact.

5. My music collection is horribly outdated. Am taking any and all recommendations of good new stuff.

6. Washington-Dulles Airport is in fact in Virginia, which IS NOT on the way to New York from Washington DC. In fact, it is approximately 46 kilometers in the opposite direction of New York, in case anyone was wondering.

Not that it's surprising...

The Bears are still the Bears. I was guilty, like most of you, of forgetting that for a few weeks. I'll admit I had visions of New Orleans in my head and I lost sight of the fact that...it's still the d*am mother f*cking piece of sh*t bears.

End of rant.

a picture for my dorky rallycom friends

send me strength, friends.

chad is coming to stay with me.

(maybe he will help me change my hubcap covers and fix the door lock on the apt.)

it's raining like crazy right now.

i'm so excited that al gore won the nobel peace prize (but still doubt he will run for pres).

and sat night (while chad is here--i'm a great hostess), i am going to one of those crazy (and expensive) squirt bottle restaurants with a friend (who insists it's really great). i'm hoping we'll have room to go to this place on the way back, but i doubt that will happen. when i told joe, one of my favorite farmers that i was going to this restaurant on saturday (he and the chef are friends), he told me i'd love it, and then he pointed to his pants and said, "these are david's!" uh. is it just me or is it really weird that they are sharing pants? (actually, they were hand me downs)

Thinks that make you go: Whoa!

So, I was reading my dorky blog about all things TV, and I followed a link to ew.com about how Kevin Smith will be directing an episode of LOST (which is very cool in a very dorky way). The first paragraph goes like this:

"It's October, and we're still around four months away from Lost's season premiere. By that time — Spoiler Alert! — the Boston Red Sox will have beaten the Colorado Rockies to win the World Series, the University of California will have edged out the LSU Tigers for the college football national championship, and my hometown Seattle Seahawks will have capped a Cinderella season by beating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Yes, my awesome Desmond-esque precognitive powers extend to the world of sports, too."

Did you see it? When he wrote "the University of California," he was talking about us! This required a double take equivalent to the one I took the first time I saw the Ford commercial with the giant bear chasing the Heisman trophy (at first, I was irritated that they hadn't portrayed the Bruin as being small and dickless. Then, after some time, I realized that it was a Golden Bear!). So, this is what it's like to be the team everyone is talking about.

Has anyone been to Montreal?

I'm going to Montreal this weekend and I'm looking for suggestions of things to see, do, and (of course) eat. Anybody been there?

Summer in New York: Screw You

87 degrees and humid in October? In New York. The one decent season in this town is fall and I'm getting screwed out of it. On the other hand, having worked twelve hours days for the past 8 days, I didn't really notice until last night.

A moment of silence...

...for our dear friend Nick.

There are losses, and then there are LOSSES. May he not take this one too hard...and may the Golden Bears follow in the Cardinal's footsteps.

Like frogger, but real life

I've decided to keep a running tally of times that I almost die in Mexico - so far I'm up to 4! Score! For the record, being a pedestrian in Mexico City is like playing frogger. One would assume that you walk with the green light, right? Wrong! Red and green lights mean nothing here - they're merely suggestions. One would also assume that being in a crosswalk means that cars have to stop, right? Wrong again! Cars speed up to try and hit you while in a cross walk, especially really white people like me (that last part I'm only 20% sure about). It's 3:30 here and I will spend the rest of my day in my room watching E! in Spanish. I'm too tired to venture out into the mess that is this strange city. And no worries, this will not be turn into my travel blog - I do not intend to hog anything. I just need some English human contact, alright?!

T.M.B.G.

I had the pleasure of catching the They Might Be Giants concert at the House of Blues in San Diego last night. It was a 14 and Up show, which as the lead singer said was "very sophisticated." It was an interesting show as I was surrounded by a very diverse crowd. By that I mean it was white nerds of all ages and weight classes. Everyone there was either an adolescent or was in some way trying to relive their adolescence. It was also very clear that everyone there would have been perfectly happy for them to play the entire album "Flood" from start to finish, and that the band had NO intention of doing that very thing. They played a lot of new stuff which was very good, and peppered in some songs from flood, but ended the first set with Birdhouse In Your Soul, ended the first encore with Istanbul, and ended the second encore with Particle Man. But any time they played one of those songs they did it a little different because it was clear they have been playing those songs since 1990 and are getting a little sick of them. It was a fun show, tickets a little pricey, but the least intimidating crowd I have ever been around at a concert. Yay I posted!

The Immodium is packed and ready!

Alright kiddies, I'm off to Mexico. Wish me luck - here's hoping that I don't kidnapped by banditos, arrested by the Mexican police, or get violent diarrhea (although, that might help with my diet)! I'm going to go bathe in mole...mmmmm...Mexican food...

Green > Purple

So at the SC-Wash game last Saturday, a couple of things happened that turned me off to Husky fans, who I usually liked and had no real problems with before:
- Right after I walked into the stadium, some frat boy came up from behind me, put his chin on my shoulder and yelled "WOOF!!! WOOF!!!" about as loud as he could into my ear. The look on my face had to be priceless because I had no idea what had just happened as he stared me down after his little display. Classy.
- During one play, two USC offensive lineman got injured. One nearly made it to the sidelines while the other just lay where he fell. Medical staff attended to both (post-game diagnosis, dislocated patella - out for season; high ankle sprain - out 3-4 weeks). Anyway, when both players were down, the Husky cheerleaders started a back-and-forth "Go Huskies!" chant. And the crowd responded ENTHUSIASTICALLY! Very classy ... I didn't know it was cool to cheer when opposing players are down and have BOTH SIDES medical staffs on the field.
- Even after all of this, I still bought a purple shirt that says U-DUB on the front seeing as how I didn't have a Washington shirt yet (adding to my Pac-10 collection of Cal, Stanford, Oregon and OSU). Just tried it on right now ... and lets just say that purple is NOT my color. I don't come CLOSE to being able to pull that off. Maybe its good that I didn't go to Washington Law - I definitely look much better in green.

A little glory of my own

I got a raise! Woohoo!

Bask in my reflected glory!

My photo has been selected to be one of three photos that represent my lab on the internet (see above). Literally dozens of people a year, who visit my lab's webpage and wait more than 20 seconds before clicking through, will see my photo on the bottom corner of the page. Yes, I look stoned, and I am totally in that woman's intimate space, but apparently I have what it takes to succeed in the world of stock photography. If you send me your computer monitor, I will sign the screen and send it back.

A day in the life

I just walked in the door at home to find Wes making a Jesus Mii on our Wii. I said, "Wes, why are you making a Jesus Mii?" And he said, "Because I want to hit a home run off Jesus."

"Oh, and his name is Jebus."

That, my friends is a day in my life. Jealous?

An Ode to Fall

The awful DC Indian summer is scheduled to break tonight and will bring us beautiful fall weather starting tomorrow. We can start sleeping with the windows open tonight. In my eager anticipation for autumn, I have written a poem, and I wanted to share it with you guys (It's a Haiku):

It's still so damn hot
But a sure sign that it's fall:
Pumpkin Spice Coffee

Tidbits

#1 - Gossip:
Samin went to a Cal football game! I don't even know her anymore! And she tried to keep it a secret...um...no!

#2 - I hate people:
This is the email I receive from the US Dpt of State about my passport:
"You paid for overnight delivery. Your passport will arrive on October 6." Um, wtf? Does that make any sense? No. Oh, and what date do I leave for Mexico? That's right...October 4!!!!!!

I love how when I open this page, Pinchy is perfectly positioned so it looks like she's peeking out from the bottom. That's all.

NDSPN

http://ndspn.com/

If you hate Notre Dame as much as I do, you have to go to this site. Hilarious!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TURBO!

Forgive the duplicate post from my blog, but everyone here should add on!



It’s our little Turbo’s birthday. In honor of this special occasion, here are a few of my favorite things about little Erin Terhorst that you may not know:

• She eats like a squirrel - little bites, really quickly
• She LOVES talking about the gross things she sees while on duty as the greatest nurse in the world
• We coined the term “Rabid Amusement Park Mode” because of her fanatical behavior once in an amusement park (or ski resort, or farmer’s market…) to do everything as many times as possible
• She tans darker than a Dutch person should
• She has a little head, which looks even smaller next to my gigantic Sputnik head in photos
• Microsoft’s spell check turns her last name into Terrorist – not far off!
• She was such a good surfer right off the bat, that she earned the nickname Gidget (Not a balance beam!)
• She is potentially the cutest person you’ve ever seen laugh really hard – lots of tears and squeaking
• She’s hilarious when she doesn’t try, but can’t tell a joke to save her life (why can’t Dutch people tell jokes?)
• She has lots of friends all over the country (and even in Canada!) who love her mucho
• She is the most adorable, spazzy, beach loving, New York dwelling, hoop earring tugging, fast walking, absofreakin’ cutie patootie little turbo you’ll ever meet

Hellooooooo Nurse!

Happy Birthday, Turbs! Come down to the swamps, we miss you!

Ananakooli, Makawani, Ana-ona, Nanawula Wa, Hawa-ii

Yep, my ukulele, pineapples and scandalously revealing speedo are packed, and I am headed out to the Aloha State. First, I have to endure the 15 hour flight, but then I am going sit on the beach, surf the tiny summertime waves and, oh yeah, sit through at least 8 hours a day of lectures on bone and mineral research. Woo-freakin-hoo. Ah well, all the Mai-Tais should help me through the crushing boredom.

See ya later Suckas!
(yes, I said Suckas, and I'm sticking by it!

My fast track to obesity

A cupcake shop just opened up around the corner from my house. A featured item on the menu:

Deep Fried Cupcake - cream stuffed vanilla cupcake dipped in sweet batter, deep fried to order and drizzled with chocolate syrup.

I'll let you know as soon as I try it.

Unfortunately, this product doesn't exist yet, but I think we can all agree that it's the perfect way to wash down that cupcake:

WHERE'S CHAD!?!?!?!?!!

Yes someone forgot to invite him! In fact, EVERYONE forgot to invite him. Nick finally did it this morning. Thanks guys.

Penguin Clubbing

OK, I'm here, and although this does not come close to the simple joy of seal clubbing, this link will help you understand my new favorite sport:

Penguin Clubbing: http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

I've got 320...beat that suckas!
(I know the url looks sketchy, but it is worth every bit of spyware you get)

Happy New Year, Amy!

Just wanted to give a little shout out on Rosh Hashanah to the Jewish peeps in the heezy.

Here’s a little song just for you!

WES!!!!!!

Wesley Michael Jackson enjoys clubbing baby seals. There. Now you have to post something so you can refute that statement, which is now on the web for all the world to see.

Seriously

I don't know who is digging up these photos, but it has to stop. Now. Gross.

FYI

Everything in my refrigerator is rotten. Okay, maybe not everything. I think I have some peanut butter that is still good, and the garlic technically isn't rotten, it's growing green stuff. Lex, at least you ate the food before it went bad.

PS Canada is weird. It's like the United States, but like Bizarro United States. And no matter what Kevin says, it is colder there.

H.C.D.I.B

I will give 20 dollars to whoever can guess what the title means. Here's a hint - it has to do with our favorite subject.

Oh man

those were the good ol' days. when we wore overalls and fought publicly in mediocre restaurants.

now we wear jeans and fight publicly in mediocre restaurants. so much has changed.

Someone tell me a story. I'm hungover. and want to go home and go to bed.

yes, I'm aware that it's monday.

where is chad?

is he too cool for us (rhetorical question) or did someone forget to invite him?

Halloween ...

I'm watching Rob Zombie's new version of Halloween online right now. I'm 35 minutes in and already this might be one of the WORST things I have EVER seen. And I've seen a LOT of movies, including a LOT of VERY BAD horror movies. I will write more about this later ...

and Natalie, this makes The Devil's Rejects seem like Shakespeare directed by Hitchcock in comparison ...

It was Wes' idea!

I post the most because I have the most time out of all you fools. I'm bored at least 80% of the time. And I get paid for it - it's ridiculous. For the record, the idea for the blog came from Wes, but we all know how horrible he is at emailing!

This is profoundly disturbing.

My co-worker sent me a link to this website, which features pictures from fast food ads compared with shots of the actual food. In spite of how revolting the pictures are, it kind of made me want McDonalds.

Why is Lex the only one who posts on this thing? Come on, Wes. At least tell us about the latest cool (i.e. lame) thing you learned on NPR.

I have cooties...

....and they're from either Wes or Erin. Yes, I woke up today with a rash on the right side of my face and a 2 inch strip on my stomach from where my shirt rode up. I'm allergic to one of those two since they're the last ones to sleep in my bed! I'm off to go change the sheets.

Just because it didn't get said last weekend...

We are so frickin funny!

Guess Where I'm Going...

The Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour!

Effin tree sitters

So I told some friends at work that there were actually naked people sitting in trees and eating tofu and they didn't believe me. Clearly Berkeley is the greatest place in the planet, but why does EVERY CRAZY need to think that too?

Reason #25,367 that we're gross:

Here's what I found when I opened up my fridge this morning after a weekend of partying:

-bacon
-leftover steak
-a bowl of garlic butter
-2 2 liter bottles of Coke
-Donuts from Kingpin
-Pizza
-Buffalo Wings
-3 packets of Ranch Dressing
-2 beers (we started with at least 18)
-a few crumbles of what was once three wedges of cheese

And on the counter an empty bag of chips and an empty box of Wheat Thins. Oh, and an almost empty bottle of Jim Beam.
I'm not even going to say what was in the recycle bin.

We're disgusting.

Blogging is dumb
Unless I get to make fun of Turbo
Then I like it.