Tag: entertainment

Sunday

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Another lazy day.  Kelly was up around 7 or 7:30 and I got up a little later and ate some breakfast, but then I went back to bed for a while, still needing to rest and be lazy.  I spent most of the day watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD and finished up the last movie late in the evening.

Mid-afternoon we headed out to do shopping.  Kelly headed off to Target and I went to the grocery store.  I’d planned out the menus for the week and got what we needed.

For dinner this evening, I made up a pasta dish.  Essentially, it was fettuccine with a "Marsala" sauce.  I prepared mushrooms the same way I prepare them when making chicken Marsala but when the pasta was done cooking, I through it in the pan with the mushrooms and sauce and tossed it.  It came out good.  I also made caesar salads, and instead of garlic bread, I got some pita chips and hummus, spread the hummus on the chips and put a slice of cucumber on top.

I did manage to get a little reading done today.

It started snowing late this afternoon.  I said to Kelly, "Let me see how much snow we’re supposed to get," since I hadn’t heard of any snow (or been paying attention to the weather for the last week).  I went online to look, figuring it would be the usual "less than an inch".  A minute later I said, "You’ve got to be [expletive removed]-ing kidding me!"

"What?" Kelly said.

"Am I reading this right?  It says we’re supposed to get 5-8 inches of snow!"

For some reason, I had trouble sleeping.  I tossed and turned for a while and then got up again and went downstairs to read.  I finally went to bed around midnight.

Saturday

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We slept in late this morning.  Actually, we got up for a while and then went back to bed.  I’d been working hard all week and I had to work more today but I needed some rest.  We finally got up and showered sometime around 11 AM.

Around noon I started to work.  Kelly headed off to the movies with Leanna and some other friends.  I worked for about 3-1/2 hours before calling it a day.  I decided to be lazy for the rest of the day and started watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD.

Kelly was home around 6 PM and I started dinner.   Tonight I made cheese quesadillas with Spanish rice, and I was particularly pleased with how well the rice came out.

No gym today once again.

No gym this morning

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I made chicken marsala and rice pilaf for dinner and both came out good.  I may have slightly overcooked the rice, but it was the first time in my life that I ever made rice and I thought it tasted really good.  There were some leftovers which Kelly is taking for her lunch today.  No writing last night.  We watched Big Love and then I got through about the first 30 pages of Steal Across the Sky.

I lost the battle of wills this morning and did not get up.  It wasn’t that I was overly tired.  I wasn’t.  Zach was moving a lot last night and I felt him again and again.  I was warm and cozy in bed this morning (and cold outside) and although I’m making dinner this evening, it’s a fairly easy-to-make dinner and so I can go to the gym afterward.

Lunch is made.  I’ve got to finish my OJ and then hit the shower.  I’ve got another busyday of developing training materials. 

The Oscars

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I’m disappointed in the outcome of last night’s Academy Awards.  Perhaps part of the reason is that I saw only three of the pictures up for awards:

  1. Vicky Christina Barcelona
  2. The Dark Knight
  3. The Wrestler

Of the three movies, The Wrestler was far and away the standout of the batch, and Mickey Rourke’s performance in the movie was better than anything I’ve seen in a long time.  Vicky Christina Barcelona was the first Woody Allen movie that I didn’t like.  It’s not that I just didn’t like it.  I thought it was terrible.  The Dark Knight while a fun movie, didn’t come close to what was capture by Batman Begins.  Yes, Heath Ledger made a good Joker, but I didn’t think it any better or worse than Jack Nicholson’s performance in the same role.  Of course, Jack is still alive and Heath is not and perhaps that made all the difference.

I didn’t see Slumdog Millionaire, but I’m not surprised it won as much as it did.  In a bad economy, people are looking for hopeful stories.  It was an underdog and had buzz and that is why it won.  The story it told is a very old one, and from what I’ve gleaned there was really nothing new that it added, except perhaps setting.  It’s touted as a story of triumph, but I mean, come on, we’re talking about winning a trivia game, right?  Rich or poor, no matter where you are in the world, if you have a trick memory, you can do it.

I was pulling for Mickey Rourke for Best Actor and Marisa Tomei for Best Supporting Actress.  What we got, with the possible exception of Sean Penn in Milk, was mediocrity.  I mean really, why bother anymore?  We got the same actors playing the same roles that we expect of them in the way we expect them to play.  Perhaps that’s what we call an award-winning performance these days, but I think we are setting the bar way too low.

Weekend wrapup

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We went to see Les Mis at the Signature Theater last night and had a great time.  The show was at 8 PM, and after struggling a little to find parking, we went into the theater and were seated on the right side of the "Max" theater, just a few rows back from the stage.  It’s one of those theaters where there are no bad seats.  Neither of us had ever seen the play before and I enjoyed it, all the more since it wasn’t a big broadway production.  There were even a few child actors in the play who did a fantastic job.  Despite the economy, the theater was full.  The play ended at about 11 PM and we were home ten minutes later.

Earlier in the day, we met up with AJ and Denisse and had lunch with them in Shirlington at Guapo’s, and then came back to our place for a while.  We sat around chatting and then somehow got into playing "guess this TV show theme".  That was fun,

It was my goal today to try and knock more items off the to-do list.  I got a few done.  I worked on the forms and paper work for the financial advisor and accountant.  I cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the kitchen floor.  We did grocery shopping this evening (during the Superbowl, so that the store was empty).  It was near 60 degrees and sunny today so we took a walk into Shirlington on the new bike path that cuts under 395.  It really shortens the walk.  We walked back the old way just so we could linger in the warm sun a little longer.

I started to catch-up on NEW SCIENTIST reading, but didn’t get too far.  I also did more reading of Beyond Band of Brothers.  Spoke with Mom and Dad today.  Tried to do some work from home but my account seems to be locked out for some reason.  I’ll have to get that worked out tomorrow.

Early night tonight.  If all goes well, I start up my workout routine tomorrow on a modified version of my old schedule.  I plan on getting up at 4 AM.  We’ll see how that goes.

A tender breeze blows, whispers through a Gran Torino

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Up at 8 AM.  We ate breakfast and then sat around watching Charles Osgood, which is how we like starting off our Sunday’s.  Most of the chores were done yesterday so there wasn’t too much to do around the house today.  I really wanted to see Gran Torino and I didn’t have to twist Kelly’s arm too much.  We went to a 1:45 PM showing and I really enjoyed the movie.  Clint Eastwood’s got talent.  Kelly said afterward that she liked it too.  I think she went in thinking she might not.  First weekend that I think we’ve ever gone to see two movies.

When we got home, we decided to brave the cold and walk to the grocery store to pick up a few items.   It’s about a mile each way.  It was a nice walk, just cold.  When we got back home, we ate dinner, watched some TV.  Kelly was tired and headed off to bed early.  I’m in a Clint Eastwood phase now so I watched Absolute Power, which I’d never seen before.  Not bad.

No reading or writing done today.  But there’s still a week left in the month.

Oh, and as of 10:51 PM ET on January 25, 2009, this blog has received 4,999 comments.  Whoever comments next will post the 5,000th comment.  Not too shabby.

ETA: he11o_sunshine  gets the award for 5,000th comment with this one.  Congrats, Jen!

And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you

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Went to bed shortly after getting back from happy hour last night.  I woke up sometime after midnight feeling a bit dizzy; this despite having chugged a liter and a half of water when I got home.  Fortunately, it passed and I slept through the rest of the night undisturbed.

Up this morning and we were both in moods to get things done.  We made good use of the time.  I finally cleaned off the kitchen counter, which was being used as a gigantic inbox.  Kelly cleaned things too.  We headed out to Potomac Yards to run errands:  returned some things to Sports Authority, picked up some books at Barnes & Noble, grabbed some cat litter from Pet Smart and then a few odds and ends from Target.  We were home by noon.  I cleaned out the cat litter and then we had lunch: grilled cheese  (Someone is bound to comment on the previous sentence, but believe me, it was all perfectly sanitary.)  At Target we picked up some containers for cereal so that the boxes are no longer taking up space in the cupboard.  We also got a nice little magnetic whiteboard for the fridge.

Kelly went out with Sarah all afternoon (scoping out houses for Sarah’s sister) and I stayed home and relaxed.  I vacuumed and folded laundry.  I watched Jumper on HBO.  It was one of those movies where the book was so much better and so different that the two really didn’t have anything to do with one another (except the teleportation).  Not a bad movie, just not nearly as good as Steven Gould’s book.  I got some reading done too.  And even managed to sneak in a nap.

When Kelly and Sarah got back, we headed over to Shirlington and had dinner at Guapo’s.  I had the bacon-wrapped shrimp dish again, which was just as good this time as the first time.  After dinner we headed over to the movie theater.  Kelly and Sarah went to see Slumdog Millionaire, while I went and saw The Wrestler, which turned out to be one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while.

We got all the chores and errands done today so tomorrow there’s not much to do.  I plan on getting to work on the second draft of "Homecoming", now that I’ve gotten some good feedback.  Maybe get some more reading in, as well.

Catching up, part 2

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I went upstairs to read at 7 PM last night and couldn’t get through a page before falling asleep.  I woke up at 6 AM and Kelly and I decided to stay in bed (and keep warm) until 7:30.  So I basically slept for 12 hours last night.  Then it was off to a busy day in the office.

The days are flying by and blurring into one another.  I only got to the gym one day this week.  On the other hand, I did a good deal of writing and I’m happy about that.  I’ve been trying to catch up on NEW SCIENTIST.  I was two issues behind, and now I’m only one issue behind.  But that’s taken time away from The Best of the Best.  I hope to make better progress on that  front.

Kelly’s belly is getting bigger.  People other than me can tell she’s pregnant.  She’s generally been feeling much better than she was feeling in the first trimester.

The garage door didn’t work again this morning. This marks the fourth time I’ve had problems with it, always on cold days, and I ripped the maintenance manager a new one, I’m afraid.  I asked the to replace the garage door opener, seeing as how I appear to be the only one having the problem.  I played the "pregnant wife" card and made it clear that I didn’t want Kelly to have to manually open and close the garage door.  The damn thing is just defective.  They "fixed" the problem today by adjusting the tension, but even after that, I went to the office and made sure that I wanted it replaced.  It involves paperwork and going through the management company, but I’m not backing off this one

Re-upped my SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN subscription through 2012.  Received three of The Year’s Best Science Fiction in the mail yesterday.  I’m slowly going to work my way backwards through the series.  And today also marked two straight weeks of packing my lunch for work.

It was extremely cold here today.  Below 0 at times.  Right now, the temperature is 7 and 0 with the wind chill.  At least the heat in the house is working.

We head to New York tomorrow to visit he11o_sunshine  and stubiebrother  and Sadie.  Yup, we’re flying US Airways to LaGuardia and back.  A couple of people have pointed this out to me so I’m just confirming it.  We are looking forward to seeing Jen and Jason and meeting our niece for the first time.

Inauguration is Tuesday and I haven’t described what it’s like in the D.C. area with respect to that, but it will have to wait for another post because I’m getting ready to go to bed.  Suffice it to say, it will be interesting here over the next four or five days.

Just finished watching the season premier of Battlestar Galactica and I thought it was good.  Looking forward to the remaining nine.  (And when there are only five episodes left, I can already predict the tag lines:  "Don’t miss the ‘final five’".

And I’ve got a small headache.

New Year’s Day

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We had a quiet day yesterday.  It was cold in the metro D.C. area, with temperatures in the 20s.  We went shopping in the morning.  First to Old Navy for Kelly to get some maternity clothes, then to Target, where she got more maternity clothes, and where we picked up a few other items.  Fromthere we headed to Barnes & Noble where I got a couple of new books:  The New Space Opera and The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Years Best Science Fiction, both edited by Gardner Dozois.  While browsing around in Sport’s Authority, we ran into Sarah and Mike.  Finally, there was a quick stop at the grocery store and we headed home.  I was starving and made a massively tall sandwich for lunch.  After lunch, we played Lego Star Wars for a while–until I felt dizzy from the motion on the screen, something that’s happened to me once before a long time ago.

I napped for about an hour and a half and then spent some time reading more of The Hard SF Renaissance.  I had hoped to finish this up in 2008, but didn’t make it.  I’m close to 2/3rds of the way through the book and I enjoyed the Greg Egan story I read yesterday.  I’ll post a short summary about what I’ve read so far soon.

I watched a few more episodes of Battlestar Galactica in the evening, and then it was lights out at 10 PM.  Kelly works from home today so I headed into the office a little early this morning.

I didn’t get any writing done yesterday, but I cut myself a little slack.  I do have to work today, although I suspect it will be dead here.  Snow is expected although I don’t think it will be much.  I plan on getting back to regular writing and workouts in earnest next week, although I am hoping to get some writing in before then.  As for the workouts, I have been a real slacker, and it shows.  I am at my peak weight, and I constantly feel it.  I’ve been steadily working my way back to a healthy diet, and plan on starting the workouts up at a simple level, rather than trying to start where I left off.

I don’t have specific New Year’s resolutions.  Aside from the arbitrariness of them, it’s hard to plan your year when you are expecting your first child halfway through.  We really have no idea how that will affect even the simplest things, like going to the gym.  I would say this:

  • I’d like to aim for 5.2 million words read this year
  • I’d like to complete the novel I’m working on and get it submitted to one place
  • I’d like to write at least 3 short stories
  • I’d like to sell at least 1 short story

Stay tuned…

Rock Band

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Kelly and I are back home after playing Rock Band at Kevin’s for 5 hours!  We got there around noon, went to Boston Market for lunch, and then headed back to play Rock Band.  We started sometime around 12:30 and we finished just before 5:30.  I spent about half the time drumming and the other half singing.  It was a lot of fun.

When we left, we walked outside and it was snowing!  Lightly, but still, enough snow had fallen to leave a thin layer on the car.  We’re home now, all toasty and warm.  It’s still snowing out.  Nothing is sticking yet, but I don’t know how much snow is expected.