Friday, June 29, 2007
Yelpin' for a livin'
No, not really...
Oh, I suppose I should tell you what yelp (http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=WdmtsJOIkDjrDb2yhVsmbQ) is all about. It's a website that I've become totally addicted to over the course of the last week. Yelp bills itself as:
...the ultimate city guide that taps into the community's voice and reveals honest and current insights on local businesses and services on everything from martinis to mechanics... just real people, writing real reviews... and that's the real deal.
You see, I'm perpetually reliant on recommedations for good places to spend my time (as well as recommendations on places I should stay the hell away from!). Now, I used to use the Washington Post's entertainment section, but I eventually realized something. Most of the reviews were from people who were royally pissed off at a given business. That made me think, are these just squeaky wheels, or is it endemic of a larger problem with the establishment in question, and these two or three people bitching about it just happened to be the only ones wanting to make noise over it? Plus, I noticed that a goodly amount of reviews amounted to what marketers call "roach baiting" or stealth marketing.
Have you ever read product reviews on amazon.com? Have you ever noticed that some of those reviews seemed, well, a little too enthusiastic about the product? Like you think to yourself, this woman really loves her Swiffer, maybe a little too much. And have you read a review that looked more like a corporate press release? That's stealth marketing: some corporate tool creates an account on a website like amazon.com and reviews their own damn product, essentially filling the role of cheerleader.
With regard to the Washington Post, I noticed that this seemed to happen when they were getting ready to announce their "Best Bets," or whatever it is they call their best of the city rankings. Too many near-identical reviews that get posted right before the voting cutoff.
What I needed was a genuine source of information. And I found it in yelp. A few weeks ago, I decided that I'd really like to do something this summer besides spending it on my back (I mean in bed or on the couch... get your mind out of the gutter!). So I noticed I was relying more and more on yelp's reviews in constructing my list of things I should do this summer. And then I figured, if I'm relying on it so much (because it's useful), I should give something back to the service that's giving me the 411 on the local scene in the first place.
What prompted me to make my first post on yelp was that I noticed a local diner had an entry, and people were giving it really good reviews. And hey, I went to that same place a few weeks back. And you know what? It wasn't all that! I used to live in NJ for a few years, and they actually have more diners than any other state. So it's safe to say I know what passes for a diner, and this place wasn't up to snuff. I reasoned that the reason for such stellar reviews is that all the cool kids from Terre Haute and Des Moines working for Congressman Hugh Jass on the Hill don't know any better. So's I recon it's high time to school 'em in tha culinary artz.
And then, I started to get feedback. Several people tagged my post as "useful" or "cool." Now I'm hooked. I'm actually being acknowledged, and I'm actually influencing other people's opinions. So then I looked for local businesses in my zip code, found a few that I go to regularly, and started writing reviews: the grocery store, the place that used to always give me lousy haircuts, the whole nine. And I kept on getting at least one or two people flagging my posts saying it helped them.
So now, it's even encouraged me to write an entry for almost every place I visit, and it's really making me want to get out and start sampling many of the bars and restaurants that I've been compiling on my culinary "hit list," which will beget even further yelp reviews.
Now I'll admit, there still might be ways to trick out the yelp system, but I think those should be easy to pick out. You're encouraged to create your own personal profile, and I'm guessing a lot of bogus reviewers aren't going to bother with that. Also, if you scope their profile and they only wrote one or two reviews since their account was created, that's probably a good tipoff that they registered only to pitch their own business.
So my goal next week is to try O'Sullivan's (an Irish-esque pub in Arlington) and maybe Ri-Ra (ditto). I'm also planning on seeing Ratatouille over the weekend, and the only place near me that's playing it is one I absolutely cannot stand (in fact, it'd be the one place where I'd actually welcome someone to buy out the business and shit out a new condo over it). But no, I'm gonna go in with an open mind, and write an honest evaluation of that theater.
But I think I gotta premonition on how that's gonna turn out...
I can't wait!
Oh, I suppose I should tell you what yelp (http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=WdmtsJOIkDjrDb2yhVsmbQ) is all about. It's a website that I've become totally addicted to over the course of the last week. Yelp bills itself as:
...the ultimate city guide that taps into the community's voice and reveals honest and current insights on local businesses and services on everything from martinis to mechanics... just real people, writing real reviews... and that's the real deal.
You see, I'm perpetually reliant on recommedations for good places to spend my time (as well as recommendations on places I should stay the hell away from!). Now, I used to use the Washington Post's entertainment section, but I eventually realized something. Most of the reviews were from people who were royally pissed off at a given business. That made me think, are these just squeaky wheels, or is it endemic of a larger problem with the establishment in question, and these two or three people bitching about it just happened to be the only ones wanting to make noise over it? Plus, I noticed that a goodly amount of reviews amounted to what marketers call "roach baiting" or stealth marketing.
Have you ever read product reviews on amazon.com? Have you ever noticed that some of those reviews seemed, well, a little too enthusiastic about the product? Like you think to yourself, this woman really loves her Swiffer, maybe a little too much. And have you read a review that looked more like a corporate press release? That's stealth marketing: some corporate tool creates an account on a website like amazon.com and reviews their own damn product, essentially filling the role of cheerleader.
With regard to the Washington Post, I noticed that this seemed to happen when they were getting ready to announce their "Best Bets," or whatever it is they call their best of the city rankings. Too many near-identical reviews that get posted right before the voting cutoff.
What I needed was a genuine source of information. And I found it in yelp. A few weeks ago, I decided that I'd really like to do something this summer besides spending it on my back (I mean in bed or on the couch... get your mind out of the gutter!). So I noticed I was relying more and more on yelp's reviews in constructing my list of things I should do this summer. And then I figured, if I'm relying on it so much (because it's useful), I should give something back to the service that's giving me the 411 on the local scene in the first place.
What prompted me to make my first post on yelp was that I noticed a local diner had an entry, and people were giving it really good reviews. And hey, I went to that same place a few weeks back. And you know what? It wasn't all that! I used to live in NJ for a few years, and they actually have more diners than any other state. So it's safe to say I know what passes for a diner, and this place wasn't up to snuff. I reasoned that the reason for such stellar reviews is that all the cool kids from Terre Haute and Des Moines working for Congressman Hugh Jass on the Hill don't know any better. So's I recon it's high time to school 'em in tha culinary artz.
And then, I started to get feedback. Several people tagged my post as "useful" or "cool." Now I'm hooked. I'm actually being acknowledged, and I'm actually influencing other people's opinions. So then I looked for local businesses in my zip code, found a few that I go to regularly, and started writing reviews: the grocery store, the place that used to always give me lousy haircuts, the whole nine. And I kept on getting at least one or two people flagging my posts saying it helped them.
So now, it's even encouraged me to write an entry for almost every place I visit, and it's really making me want to get out and start sampling many of the bars and restaurants that I've been compiling on my culinary "hit list," which will beget even further yelp reviews.
Now I'll admit, there still might be ways to trick out the yelp system, but I think those should be easy to pick out. You're encouraged to create your own personal profile, and I'm guessing a lot of bogus reviewers aren't going to bother with that. Also, if you scope their profile and they only wrote one or two reviews since their account was created, that's probably a good tipoff that they registered only to pitch their own business.
So my goal next week is to try O'Sullivan's (an Irish-esque pub in Arlington) and maybe Ri-Ra (ditto). I'm also planning on seeing Ratatouille over the weekend, and the only place near me that's playing it is one I absolutely cannot stand (in fact, it'd be the one place where I'd actually welcome someone to buy out the business and shit out a new condo over it). But no, I'm gonna go in with an open mind, and write an honest evaluation of that theater.
But I think I gotta premonition on how that's gonna turn out...
I can't wait!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Catching up!
Okay, so it's been a while since I've posted (I'm sure the two of you who read this were on the edges of your seats with anticipation of when I'd make my next post!).
I've been spending an awful lot of money on clothes and shoes lately. I do tend to be a bit of a clotheshorse. But I realized I needed some nice summertime shirts, and while I was at it, decided I could use a few pairs of designer jeans, shoes, socks, and it all kind of turned into a snowball hurling down a mountain... slow and small at first, but then gains velocity and soon spirals out of control.
I've only been a fashionista for a few years. It's not that I wasn't particularly well-dressed before then (far from it), but my wardrobe didn't have much variety outside of suits and officewear. For years, plaid lumberjack shirts and jeans were my fall/winter staples. I think two pairs of shorts and a few casual shirts were my summer "wardrobe."
All that changed when I got to grad school. For some reason, I figured I needed to dress to impress. So I slowly started to acquire casual sportcoats, jeans made from places besides the Gap, colorful casual shirts, and most of all, shoes.
You see, like most guys, I was able to get by with only a few pairs of shoes. I had a pair of dress shoes, one or two pairs of casual shoes, a pair of Timberland boots, and a pair or two of sandals. So I figure if I'm gonna spend all this money on a nice wardrobe, I really need to complement the look with decent shoes.
Now, as some of my friends know, I really, really do not like wearing shoes and socks. If I could go barefoot the rest of my life, that'd be ideal. But really, this isn't a very feasible philosophy unless you're self-employed or get to work from home. Now, if you take that into consideration, you'd probably think "okay, he's only going to get one or two semi-dressy and comfortable shoes," right?
Wrong! I think I now have over 25 pairs of shoes. Now 25 pairs of shoes for a woman might be considered self-depriving, but for a man, it reeks of excess. I can't even explain how this train started to careen out of control. I remember initially buying a pair of suede ankle boots. Years ago, I saw a nice, cognac pair of ankle boots (I think "Chelsea boots" is the formal appelation) in a Banana Republic catalogue. By the time I got to ordering them, they were completely sold out. So while I was tooling around on zappos.com a year or so ago, I found a near-identical pair. So I bought 'em. And then I noticed them in other colors. So I bought those. And then I thought to myself that suede gets dirty easily, so I should have at least one pair of nice leather shoes to go with a pair of jeans. So I bought a few pairs of Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes.
I swear, Kenneth Cole makes the nicest looking shoes that will kill your feet! I ended up getting rid of both of them because they were doing a number on my pinky toes. And I'd still try and jam my feet into them because, well, they looked really, really good! But then I found a brand called Zengara that looked like Kenneth Coles, but were half the price. Figuring I could spare $50 just to try them out, I took a chance. And they're surprisingly comfortable. So then I proceed to buy a few more in different colors and styles.
I think in this case the reason I'm driven to excess, at least as far as shoes go, is that I'm cursed with a size 14 foot (comparisons to how that translates to other parts of my body will be cheerfully entertained!). There have been a few instances where I've seen something I liked, decided I'd sleep on it for a few days, and then be completely sold out in my size. So now I figure I gotta get while the gettin's good!
On non-clothes-related notes: I stopped by Trader Joe's last Saturday for some beer. TJ's puts out a few beers under their own label that are quite good. So I'm coming back on the Metro, and when we pull into Rosslyn, several people get on, along with this hideous smell. It smelled like pure, unwashed funk. To the point where I'm actually getting queasy. The people who got on all looked like they were getting back from working out (a few had bikes), and then something captures my attention from the corner of my eye. Now to give you a point of reference, I'm sitting on one of the seats next to the doors that runs parallel to the walls of the train (it's called priority seating. Anyone can sit there, but if an elderly or handicapped person gets on, you're supposed to let them have the seat). There's a dude leaning on the plexiglass partition that separates the priority seating from the door, and it looks like he's leaning over.
No, wait, he's bending down and pressing his ASS AGAINST THE PARTITION. ON LEVEL WITH MY FACE!!! This fucker decides he needs to do a cool-down, stat, and the train would make a good a place as any. So Sir Douchealot is presenting his ass to me and stretching his hams, and I put two and two together: this is where the stank is coming from.
I ended up getting off one stop early...
I've been spending an awful lot of money on clothes and shoes lately. I do tend to be a bit of a clotheshorse. But I realized I needed some nice summertime shirts, and while I was at it, decided I could use a few pairs of designer jeans, shoes, socks, and it all kind of turned into a snowball hurling down a mountain... slow and small at first, but then gains velocity and soon spirals out of control.
I've only been a fashionista for a few years. It's not that I wasn't particularly well-dressed before then (far from it), but my wardrobe didn't have much variety outside of suits and officewear. For years, plaid lumberjack shirts and jeans were my fall/winter staples. I think two pairs of shorts and a few casual shirts were my summer "wardrobe."
All that changed when I got to grad school. For some reason, I figured I needed to dress to impress. So I slowly started to acquire casual sportcoats, jeans made from places besides the Gap, colorful casual shirts, and most of all, shoes.
You see, like most guys, I was able to get by with only a few pairs of shoes. I had a pair of dress shoes, one or two pairs of casual shoes, a pair of Timberland boots, and a pair or two of sandals. So I figure if I'm gonna spend all this money on a nice wardrobe, I really need to complement the look with decent shoes.
Now, as some of my friends know, I really, really do not like wearing shoes and socks. If I could go barefoot the rest of my life, that'd be ideal. But really, this isn't a very feasible philosophy unless you're self-employed or get to work from home. Now, if you take that into consideration, you'd probably think "okay, he's only going to get one or two semi-dressy and comfortable shoes," right?
Wrong! I think I now have over 25 pairs of shoes. Now 25 pairs of shoes for a woman might be considered self-depriving, but for a man, it reeks of excess. I can't even explain how this train started to careen out of control. I remember initially buying a pair of suede ankle boots. Years ago, I saw a nice, cognac pair of ankle boots (I think "Chelsea boots" is the formal appelation) in a Banana Republic catalogue. By the time I got to ordering them, they were completely sold out. So while I was tooling around on zappos.com a year or so ago, I found a near-identical pair. So I bought 'em. And then I noticed them in other colors. So I bought those. And then I thought to myself that suede gets dirty easily, so I should have at least one pair of nice leather shoes to go with a pair of jeans. So I bought a few pairs of Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes.
I swear, Kenneth Cole makes the nicest looking shoes that will kill your feet! I ended up getting rid of both of them because they were doing a number on my pinky toes. And I'd still try and jam my feet into them because, well, they looked really, really good! But then I found a brand called Zengara that looked like Kenneth Coles, but were half the price. Figuring I could spare $50 just to try them out, I took a chance. And they're surprisingly comfortable. So then I proceed to buy a few more in different colors and styles.
I think in this case the reason I'm driven to excess, at least as far as shoes go, is that I'm cursed with a size 14 foot (comparisons to how that translates to other parts of my body will be cheerfully entertained!). There have been a few instances where I've seen something I liked, decided I'd sleep on it for a few days, and then be completely sold out in my size. So now I figure I gotta get while the gettin's good!
On non-clothes-related notes: I stopped by Trader Joe's last Saturday for some beer. TJ's puts out a few beers under their own label that are quite good. So I'm coming back on the Metro, and when we pull into Rosslyn, several people get on, along with this hideous smell. It smelled like pure, unwashed funk. To the point where I'm actually getting queasy. The people who got on all looked like they were getting back from working out (a few had bikes), and then something captures my attention from the corner of my eye. Now to give you a point of reference, I'm sitting on one of the seats next to the doors that runs parallel to the walls of the train (it's called priority seating. Anyone can sit there, but if an elderly or handicapped person gets on, you're supposed to let them have the seat). There's a dude leaning on the plexiglass partition that separates the priority seating from the door, and it looks like he's leaning over.
No, wait, he's bending down and pressing his ASS AGAINST THE PARTITION. ON LEVEL WITH MY FACE!!! This fucker decides he needs to do a cool-down, stat, and the train would make a good a place as any. So Sir Douchealot is presenting his ass to me and stretching his hams, and I put two and two together: this is where the stank is coming from.
I ended up getting off one stop early...
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Da' weekend!
Ahh… there’s nothing like the weekend!
Actually, this weekend has been a little more productive than most. You see, I had a friend come over today to take a few pictures of me (more on that in a bit), and let’s face it: the only time I ever clean my apartment is when there’s a woman coming over. Fortunately, since I last primped my apartment for my ex about a month ago, there really wasn’t a whole lot I needed to do. But I must say that it feels good to have a nice, clean apartment. Don’t get me wrong, my place wasn’t a pigsty or anything. Nothing rotting or decomposing. But it was nice to take a vacuum to everything, clean out my bathroom, the whole nine.
I’ve also found that I’ve been sleeping more fitfully than I have in since, well, I can’t really remember. Since last Sunday, I’ve been averaging about 8-9 hours a night. Initially I attributed that to the breakup, but even today, I’ve been sleeping longer than I’ve ever been (normally, I spend about 5 hours sleeping). What sucks is that I didn’t go to the gym yesterday or today. Normally, I go early in the morning--at least on the weekends--to avoid the crowds. But I felt no reason to get out of bed early on Saturday or Sunday. I wasn’t drunk, wasn’t depressed, wasn’t, well… anything. But I decided to listen to my body and just enjoy the extra rest. I think what this means is that I need to start going to bed at an earlier hour from now on.
It used to be that if I went to bed at 10pm, I’d just wake up around 3 or 4am wide awake. My body insisted that I was getting five or six hours, and wasn’t fooled by any attempt at an earlier bedtime. But I was pretty much late for work all last week due to my body’s desire for extra sleep, and I went to bed around 11pm last night, and was still tired when I woke up.
Oh, and today I did a little photo shoot. A friend of mine (former coworker) agreed to come over and take some pictures of me. While I really needed some updated pictures of me for the dating site I’m using, I’d also like to have at least a few recent pictures of me just to have around. That’s the thing with men: we’re usually not known for picture-taking. Now while I’ll say that men are well-represented in the field of professional photography, I don’t think that ability (or desire) trickles down to the layman. It seems that every woman's place I go to, there are tons of pictures of her and her friends on the wall, and usually a photo album or two on the coffee table. Pretty much the only photos I have of me are those some woman took of me. Hell, earlier last year, I was going through some old books, and found a grammar book that I don’t recall ever using. So while I’m skimming through it, out pops a photo. It really took me back. It was a picture of me (all of 19 years old) and a close friend at the time that was, you guessed it, snapped by a woman.
I’ve also been plopping money down on some video games. I’m not a video game junkie, but my current system is a Gamecube, and they’re not making them any more. So I figure I’ll just pick up the last few games I need and then my collection’s complete!
Things could be more exciting, but they could be more tragic, too.
I’ll chose the former over the latter every single time…
Actually, this weekend has been a little more productive than most. You see, I had a friend come over today to take a few pictures of me (more on that in a bit), and let’s face it: the only time I ever clean my apartment is when there’s a woman coming over. Fortunately, since I last primped my apartment for my ex about a month ago, there really wasn’t a whole lot I needed to do. But I must say that it feels good to have a nice, clean apartment. Don’t get me wrong, my place wasn’t a pigsty or anything. Nothing rotting or decomposing. But it was nice to take a vacuum to everything, clean out my bathroom, the whole nine.
I’ve also found that I’ve been sleeping more fitfully than I have in since, well, I can’t really remember. Since last Sunday, I’ve been averaging about 8-9 hours a night. Initially I attributed that to the breakup, but even today, I’ve been sleeping longer than I’ve ever been (normally, I spend about 5 hours sleeping). What sucks is that I didn’t go to the gym yesterday or today. Normally, I go early in the morning--at least on the weekends--to avoid the crowds. But I felt no reason to get out of bed early on Saturday or Sunday. I wasn’t drunk, wasn’t depressed, wasn’t, well… anything. But I decided to listen to my body and just enjoy the extra rest. I think what this means is that I need to start going to bed at an earlier hour from now on.
It used to be that if I went to bed at 10pm, I’d just wake up around 3 or 4am wide awake. My body insisted that I was getting five or six hours, and wasn’t fooled by any attempt at an earlier bedtime. But I was pretty much late for work all last week due to my body’s desire for extra sleep, and I went to bed around 11pm last night, and was still tired when I woke up.
Oh, and today I did a little photo shoot. A friend of mine (former coworker) agreed to come over and take some pictures of me. While I really needed some updated pictures of me for the dating site I’m using, I’d also like to have at least a few recent pictures of me just to have around. That’s the thing with men: we’re usually not known for picture-taking. Now while I’ll say that men are well-represented in the field of professional photography, I don’t think that ability (or desire) trickles down to the layman. It seems that every woman's place I go to, there are tons of pictures of her and her friends on the wall, and usually a photo album or two on the coffee table. Pretty much the only photos I have of me are those some woman took of me. Hell, earlier last year, I was going through some old books, and found a grammar book that I don’t recall ever using. So while I’m skimming through it, out pops a photo. It really took me back. It was a picture of me (all of 19 years old) and a close friend at the time that was, you guessed it, snapped by a woman.
I’ve also been plopping money down on some video games. I’m not a video game junkie, but my current system is a Gamecube, and they’re not making them any more. So I figure I’ll just pick up the last few games I need and then my collection’s complete!
Things could be more exciting, but they could be more tragic, too.
I’ll chose the former over the latter every single time…
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Rehashed for your pleasure!
I'd actually started keeping a blog on myspace, but decided to become more ambitious and try blogger out. Since I'm still proud of my former myspace posts, I've combined them all here for this, my first, official blog entry. Enjoy!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Quite the gourmet!
Current mood: content
For the first few years after moving down to DC, I never did any cooking. My first place was, how should I put it... teeming with critters courtesy of my filthpot of a downstairs neighbor. Stuff with more than four legs freaks me out, and I basically stopped cooking for myself only a few weeks after moving into my first apartment. Also at this time, I became hooked on Popeye's Chicken. For those of you who don't know what Popeye's is, I truly pity you. Thou must go and procureth a box three spans wide and one cubit high, and feast upon the crunchy goodness and walk through the valley of the shadow of arteriosclerosis for ever and ever, so sayeth me.
But really, Popeye's tastes like your mouth threw a party and everyone you know was invited. So I'd trudge there once every Saturday to get my fix on, and follow it up on Sunday with a Meat Lover's pizza. So after a few years, my body showed what appreciation it had for all this food by making me look absolutely disgusting. I once had a dream where I was wandering about, and someone handed me a Gold's Gym membership like it was a tablet from Moses (no joke). I decided that this was probably a premonition, so I did two things: join the gym, and cut back on fatty foods.
Now, the first part is easy. Get your butt over to the gym and start sweating Crisco. But for someone who was essentially a culinary virgin, the second part was a little more tough. I started out with boneless spare ribs. A few of them are filling, nowhere near the size of a steak, and cook very easily. But I realized I couldn't subside on just that, delicious as it was. But then I thought: hey, I looove fried chicken. If I were to cook it myself, in the oven, I'd still get great-tasting food, but nowhere near the amount of grease, fat, and calories as the takeout stuff.
What I'm finally getting at is that after cutting my teeth on relatively easy to cook, good-tasting food, I found myself ready to tackle newer, harder to cook foods. I tried lamb, but that didn't come out so good, and with it being fairly expensive, it isn't the food that encourages me to try and try again until I get it right. Then, St. Patrick's Day came around, and I thought I'd try to cook up some Celtic soul food (I'm part Irish) in the form of corned beef.
Do you remember hearing about that soccer league in Massachusetts years back? The one where they had no goalies, they didn't keep score, and everyone got a trophy? Corned beef is the Massachusetts soccer league of food. If you know how to boil water, and keep it boiled for three hours, you're golden. And hey, it's not like you need to keep tabs on it once it's cooking. Go pay your taxes, do some laundry, plow your wife, whatever. You've got time.
So a few weeks ago, I finally realize that fish is the one thing I have left to master. Now, I used to hate fish. I mean HATE fish. Shrimp? Cool. Scallops? Cool. Calimari? Most cool. But fish? No way! But during the last year, my unit at work would get together once every so often and do lunch at a pub called Mackey's in DC. Eventually I decided to try the fish and chips, and really liked it. A quickie lunch buffet by my office, before it switched owners and screwed with the menu, sold fried whiting, and it wasn't bad either.
So now I knew that fish was the Final Frontier. It isn't the easiest thing to cook. I first tried it two weeks ago (catfish), and I think I undercooked it. I didn't get sick or anything, and it tasted okay, but it just didn't seem right. So I went out and bought some frozen pollack. The first time, I noticed a definite improvement, but it still wasn't firing on all cylinders. But the third time, tonight, was the charm! Got the temperature and time down pat, and it honestly tasted like something I'd get in a restaurant!
Now, at some point, I gotta make at least one more attempt at the lamb. The Trader Joe's by me sells decent cuts of lamb, so I might as well suck it up and try it one last time (but I'll keep an emergency batch of chorizo on hand as a backup). I always say you can't beat TJ's meat!
Wait a minute...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Summer doldrums
Current mood: listless
I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't really feel like summer right now. Okay, some of you purists will argue that summer doesn't technically start for a few more weeks. School's over, therefore it must be summer, now shoo!
You know how sometimes when you have a Monday holiday, you feel off-kilter for the rest of the week 'cause your brain still thinks it's a day behind the work week? I feel like I'm a whole month off. Maybe it's because we've been having so much overcast, fairly cool weather in DC right now, and it just seems more like early May.
Plus, work's been kind of slow, too. The past few months were all kinds of busy here at work, but now it's easing up. I'm tentatively scheduled to go on three site visits this summer--basically, I'd be going to various police agencies and analyzing use of force data. Basically, I'll be spending my summer in a records room sifting through old police reports. But hey, it'll at least be air conditioned!
The healing process seems to be mostly complete, or at least that's how I feel right now. I managed to get out of bed only modestly late today, and I haven't been trying to replay the events of the past few weeks over and over again. Yet, for some reason, my apartment still feels "empty," even though I'm the only person living there and she wasn't over at my place for weeks. Maybe it's symbolic. But my Paul Verhoeven collection came in the mail yesterday, so I spent the last hours of the night watching "Soldier of Orange."
Things seriously need to pick up around here...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Onwards and upwards!
Current mood: contemplative
Ohhh, those words used to piss me off royally. Every time I'd meet with some sort of disapointment in my life, someone would inevitably say "oh well, it's onwards and upwards. Gotta get back on that horse!" I didn't always want to get back on that horse. Sometimes I wanted the horse to trample me like a demented rodeo clown. Not that I had a death wish, far from it. But I figure hey, if it tramples me, I might go into a coma. I like sleeping. They feed you through a tube. I like eating. You're totally blanked out from the world. I like not having to hear cutesy trite expressions.
Okay, so the two of you reading this know from the previous post that I've broken up with my girlfriend. But I can either sit on my butt and mope about it, which does no one any good, or I can get back on the frikken horse. So I reactivated my match.com profile yesterday (surprise, surprise, the former GF was active within 24 hours, so I guess she's trying to rinse me from her system too. Thought she was too busy for a relationship. I won't dwell on it. Whatever helps us heal). I dusted off my profile, freshened it up a bit, added a line towards the end about needing to find people who have the work/personal life thang goin' on, that kind of stuff (that's what I think doomed the former relationship). Then, I took the rest of the day off, called up a former coworker friend of mine, and she agreed to have a photo shoot this weekend. I have several pictures posted, but they're all pretty much the same picture, and at the office. So I'll try on a few different outfits, take some indoor and outdoor shoots, and get those posted.
In any event, I've actually heard back from two people in less than a day! So that was a real morale booster! Things might work out, they might not, but it was a nice little rush to come into work and have a few emails waiting for me.
The thing about falling off the horse is that (so I've been told) there's a real risk of getting gunshy the next time you get back on the horse. You know, you got thrown once, so you're so wound up about not getting thrown from the horse that the only thing you're doing is making sure you don't get thrown again. I need to make sure I'm not gunshy from here on in. Bringing up the old relationship, overly-reading into what a date tells me, paranoia when she doesn't return my phone call right this minute.
It's a learning experience...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
My crappy birthday :(
Current mood: sad
As I get older, I find my birthdays to have less and less meaning. I mean, who didn't love birthdays as a kid? I'd get a crazy pile of loot (GI Joes RULED!), cake and ice cream, and all my friends would come over. But as I entered my teens, I made less of a fuss over my birthday, and now, it's just another day gone by. I don't get out and celebrate it. I just can't get excited over it.
I felt almost completely numb on this year's birthday. I ended up going to work (I think I've taken the day off only once), and it was just the most pointless thing ever. I wasn't very busy, and was in a really crappy mood all day, partly because I thought my girlfriend and I were through (more on that in a moment). I just kind of zonked out in front of my screen, time passing by in a haze. I finally went home and didn't even do anything special... I think I had a chicken cutlet and a salad for dinner. Nothing special at all.
And a few days after my birthday, I decided to call things off with my girlfriend. She hadn't been returning my messages for a few weeks, and when she reestablished contact, she kept on saying vague things like "needing some space" but not defining her terms clearly. After several missed attempts at communication, I get an email on Sunday saying she wanted to remain friends, but was moving on with her career and personal life (the woman was something of a workaholic), as that was what was important to her at the moment. I got upset, not because she said this (I had a suspicion this was in the works), but that she never made the effort to call me and talk about her concerns, as maybe we could have worked something out. I was also upset because after going out with someone for so long, I thought I at least deserved the courtesy of her decision in person, or at least over the phone. So I told her the reason I was using match.com (that's how we met) was to find a girlfriend. I already have regular friends. I told her I respected her decision, wasn't mad at her, but this was the point she and I needed to take our bows and say our goodbyes. I tried calling her to tell her this, but got her voicemail. And, I tried calling her one last time just to see if we were able to clear the air so there were no hard feelings. She eventually emailed me late that night and told me there was nothing left to discuss and to please not call or email her any more.
To be honest, I was getting more and more upset over these developments as the night wore on, but when she finally responded to me, as stark as the tone of her email was, I felt strangely at peace. Oh, I was still a little upset, but I was much more collected. So I sent her one, last email. Yeah, I know she told me not to, but I was in the process of drafting it before I got her last email. So I was a bit more clear, said I didn't appreciate her lack of communication, the fact that after going out for so long, she decides (all of a sudden) she wants to be "just friends" and doesn't even have the guts to tell me this in person. But I also told her that I had some great times with her, and there were several memories I had of her that I'd always remember.
And no, I never heard back from her...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Cooking with beer
Current mood: lazy
I like to cook. I also like beer. But for some reason, I've never combined the two. Well, not until this weekend. You see, I had a few extra bottles of beer (Sam Adams Black Lager and Boston Ale), and I finally decided to use them to marinate some boneless beef short ribs and some hamburger patties. If you've never cooked with beer, let me tell you...the smell is, well, bizarre to say the least. I had let the ribs soak overnight, and I had just put them in the oven. So while I'm starting to do a load of laundry, I begin to notice, this, well, odd aroma. Like burnt paste. It honestly started to take me back to kindergarten (not that I actually burned paste back then, just that the smell of paste conjured up vivid images from over 25 years ago). Since I live in an apartment, my first thought was that someone was burning some particularly nasty incense, most likely my next door neighbor who thinks he's really slick trying to mask the smell of weed, but isn't fooling anyone. At any rate, I went to check on the food, and the scent was absolutely overwhelming. So I guess the moral of the story is that if you cook with beer, make sure to crack a window :)
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Quite the gourmet!
Current mood: content
For the first few years after moving down to DC, I never did any cooking. My first place was, how should I put it... teeming with critters courtesy of my filthpot of a downstairs neighbor. Stuff with more than four legs freaks me out, and I basically stopped cooking for myself only a few weeks after moving into my first apartment. Also at this time, I became hooked on Popeye's Chicken. For those of you who don't know what Popeye's is, I truly pity you. Thou must go and procureth a box three spans wide and one cubit high, and feast upon the crunchy goodness and walk through the valley of the shadow of arteriosclerosis for ever and ever, so sayeth me.
But really, Popeye's tastes like your mouth threw a party and everyone you know was invited. So I'd trudge there once every Saturday to get my fix on, and follow it up on Sunday with a Meat Lover's pizza. So after a few years, my body showed what appreciation it had for all this food by making me look absolutely disgusting. I once had a dream where I was wandering about, and someone handed me a Gold's Gym membership like it was a tablet from Moses (no joke). I decided that this was probably a premonition, so I did two things: join the gym, and cut back on fatty foods.
Now, the first part is easy. Get your butt over to the gym and start sweating Crisco. But for someone who was essentially a culinary virgin, the second part was a little more tough. I started out with boneless spare ribs. A few of them are filling, nowhere near the size of a steak, and cook very easily. But I realized I couldn't subside on just that, delicious as it was. But then I thought: hey, I looove fried chicken. If I were to cook it myself, in the oven, I'd still get great-tasting food, but nowhere near the amount of grease, fat, and calories as the takeout stuff.
What I'm finally getting at is that after cutting my teeth on relatively easy to cook, good-tasting food, I found myself ready to tackle newer, harder to cook foods. I tried lamb, but that didn't come out so good, and with it being fairly expensive, it isn't the food that encourages me to try and try again until I get it right. Then, St. Patrick's Day came around, and I thought I'd try to cook up some Celtic soul food (I'm part Irish) in the form of corned beef.
Do you remember hearing about that soccer league in Massachusetts years back? The one where they had no goalies, they didn't keep score, and everyone got a trophy? Corned beef is the Massachusetts soccer league of food. If you know how to boil water, and keep it boiled for three hours, you're golden. And hey, it's not like you need to keep tabs on it once it's cooking. Go pay your taxes, do some laundry, plow your wife, whatever. You've got time.
So a few weeks ago, I finally realize that fish is the one thing I have left to master. Now, I used to hate fish. I mean HATE fish. Shrimp? Cool. Scallops? Cool. Calimari? Most cool. But fish? No way! But during the last year, my unit at work would get together once every so often and do lunch at a pub called Mackey's in DC. Eventually I decided to try the fish and chips, and really liked it. A quickie lunch buffet by my office, before it switched owners and screwed with the menu, sold fried whiting, and it wasn't bad either.
So now I knew that fish was the Final Frontier. It isn't the easiest thing to cook. I first tried it two weeks ago (catfish), and I think I undercooked it. I didn't get sick or anything, and it tasted okay, but it just didn't seem right. So I went out and bought some frozen pollack. The first time, I noticed a definite improvement, but it still wasn't firing on all cylinders. But the third time, tonight, was the charm! Got the temperature and time down pat, and it honestly tasted like something I'd get in a restaurant!
Now, at some point, I gotta make at least one more attempt at the lamb. The Trader Joe's by me sells decent cuts of lamb, so I might as well suck it up and try it one last time (but I'll keep an emergency batch of chorizo on hand as a backup). I always say you can't beat TJ's meat!
Wait a minute...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Summer doldrums
Current mood: listless
I can't put my finger on it, but it doesn't really feel like summer right now. Okay, some of you purists will argue that summer doesn't technically start for a few more weeks. School's over, therefore it must be summer, now shoo!
You know how sometimes when you have a Monday holiday, you feel off-kilter for the rest of the week 'cause your brain still thinks it's a day behind the work week? I feel like I'm a whole month off. Maybe it's because we've been having so much overcast, fairly cool weather in DC right now, and it just seems more like early May.
Plus, work's been kind of slow, too. The past few months were all kinds of busy here at work, but now it's easing up. I'm tentatively scheduled to go on three site visits this summer--basically, I'd be going to various police agencies and analyzing use of force data. Basically, I'll be spending my summer in a records room sifting through old police reports. But hey, it'll at least be air conditioned!
The healing process seems to be mostly complete, or at least that's how I feel right now. I managed to get out of bed only modestly late today, and I haven't been trying to replay the events of the past few weeks over and over again. Yet, for some reason, my apartment still feels "empty," even though I'm the only person living there and she wasn't over at my place for weeks. Maybe it's symbolic. But my Paul Verhoeven collection came in the mail yesterday, so I spent the last hours of the night watching "Soldier of Orange."
Things seriously need to pick up around here...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Onwards and upwards!
Current mood: contemplative
Ohhh, those words used to piss me off royally. Every time I'd meet with some sort of disapointment in my life, someone would inevitably say "oh well, it's onwards and upwards. Gotta get back on that horse!" I didn't always want to get back on that horse. Sometimes I wanted the horse to trample me like a demented rodeo clown. Not that I had a death wish, far from it. But I figure hey, if it tramples me, I might go into a coma. I like sleeping. They feed you through a tube. I like eating. You're totally blanked out from the world. I like not having to hear cutesy trite expressions.
Okay, so the two of you reading this know from the previous post that I've broken up with my girlfriend. But I can either sit on my butt and mope about it, which does no one any good, or I can get back on the frikken horse. So I reactivated my match.com profile yesterday (surprise, surprise, the former GF was active within 24 hours, so I guess she's trying to rinse me from her system too. Thought she was too busy for a relationship. I won't dwell on it. Whatever helps us heal). I dusted off my profile, freshened it up a bit, added a line towards the end about needing to find people who have the work/personal life thang goin' on, that kind of stuff (that's what I think doomed the former relationship). Then, I took the rest of the day off, called up a former coworker friend of mine, and she agreed to have a photo shoot this weekend. I have several pictures posted, but they're all pretty much the same picture, and at the office. So I'll try on a few different outfits, take some indoor and outdoor shoots, and get those posted.
In any event, I've actually heard back from two people in less than a day! So that was a real morale booster! Things might work out, they might not, but it was a nice little rush to come into work and have a few emails waiting for me.
The thing about falling off the horse is that (so I've been told) there's a real risk of getting gunshy the next time you get back on the horse. You know, you got thrown once, so you're so wound up about not getting thrown from the horse that the only thing you're doing is making sure you don't get thrown again. I need to make sure I'm not gunshy from here on in. Bringing up the old relationship, overly-reading into what a date tells me, paranoia when she doesn't return my phone call right this minute.
It's a learning experience...
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
My crappy birthday :(
Current mood: sad
As I get older, I find my birthdays to have less and less meaning. I mean, who didn't love birthdays as a kid? I'd get a crazy pile of loot (GI Joes RULED!), cake and ice cream, and all my friends would come over. But as I entered my teens, I made less of a fuss over my birthday, and now, it's just another day gone by. I don't get out and celebrate it. I just can't get excited over it.
I felt almost completely numb on this year's birthday. I ended up going to work (I think I've taken the day off only once), and it was just the most pointless thing ever. I wasn't very busy, and was in a really crappy mood all day, partly because I thought my girlfriend and I were through (more on that in a moment). I just kind of zonked out in front of my screen, time passing by in a haze. I finally went home and didn't even do anything special... I think I had a chicken cutlet and a salad for dinner. Nothing special at all.
And a few days after my birthday, I decided to call things off with my girlfriend. She hadn't been returning my messages for a few weeks, and when she reestablished contact, she kept on saying vague things like "needing some space" but not defining her terms clearly. After several missed attempts at communication, I get an email on Sunday saying she wanted to remain friends, but was moving on with her career and personal life (the woman was something of a workaholic), as that was what was important to her at the moment. I got upset, not because she said this (I had a suspicion this was in the works), but that she never made the effort to call me and talk about her concerns, as maybe we could have worked something out. I was also upset because after going out with someone for so long, I thought I at least deserved the courtesy of her decision in person, or at least over the phone. So I told her the reason I was using match.com (that's how we met) was to find a girlfriend. I already have regular friends. I told her I respected her decision, wasn't mad at her, but this was the point she and I needed to take our bows and say our goodbyes. I tried calling her to tell her this, but got her voicemail. And, I tried calling her one last time just to see if we were able to clear the air so there were no hard feelings. She eventually emailed me late that night and told me there was nothing left to discuss and to please not call or email her any more.
To be honest, I was getting more and more upset over these developments as the night wore on, but when she finally responded to me, as stark as the tone of her email was, I felt strangely at peace. Oh, I was still a little upset, but I was much more collected. So I sent her one, last email. Yeah, I know she told me not to, but I was in the process of drafting it before I got her last email. So I was a bit more clear, said I didn't appreciate her lack of communication, the fact that after going out for so long, she decides (all of a sudden) she wants to be "just friends" and doesn't even have the guts to tell me this in person. But I also told her that I had some great times with her, and there were several memories I had of her that I'd always remember.
And no, I never heard back from her...
Monday, May 28, 2007
Cooking with beer
Current mood: lazy
I like to cook. I also like beer. But for some reason, I've never combined the two. Well, not until this weekend. You see, I had a few extra bottles of beer (Sam Adams Black Lager and Boston Ale), and I finally decided to use them to marinate some boneless beef short ribs and some hamburger patties. If you've never cooked with beer, let me tell you...the smell is, well, bizarre to say the least. I had let the ribs soak overnight, and I had just put them in the oven. So while I'm starting to do a load of laundry, I begin to notice, this, well, odd aroma. Like burnt paste. It honestly started to take me back to kindergarten (not that I actually burned paste back then, just that the smell of paste conjured up vivid images from over 25 years ago). Since I live in an apartment, my first thought was that someone was burning some particularly nasty incense, most likely my next door neighbor who thinks he's really slick trying to mask the smell of weed, but isn't fooling anyone. At any rate, I went to check on the food, and the scent was absolutely overwhelming. So I guess the moral of the story is that if you cook with beer, make sure to crack a window :)
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